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Beto O’Rourke won't be picking sides in the Democratic primary battle for the U.S. Senate between Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico.
O’Rourke called both candidates“generational talents” who have the messages, fundraising skills and media presence to beat whomever emerges from the Republican primary battle.
“I believe in the Democratic voters of the state of Texas, who are going to have a real close and personal look at these two phenomenal candidates that we have in James and Jasmine,” O’Rourke said in an exclusive interview with the Texas Take podcast.
O’Rourke still plans to be heavily involved ahead of the midterms. The former El Paso congressman, now 53, said he’s determined to be an organizing force behind the scenes that can fix some of the structural issues from 2018 that left him just 2.6 percentage points away from knocking off U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
That means using his Powered By People political action committee to register new young voters across the state and putting them into a hyper-personalized program to actually get them to the polls. Don't think blast text messages, he emphasized, but something far more intimate. He said it is all designed to help turnout voters for the eventual nominee.
“We’re going to make sure we have enough net new Democratic voters – who aren’t just on the rolls, but are engaged, involved, informed and turn out to vote,” O’Rourke said. “That could make the difference. And that is exactly the kind of thing that I wish was in place when I was running in 2018.”
O’Rourke lost to Cruz by just 215,000 votes – the closest any Democrat has come to winning a U.S. Senate seat since Lloyd Bentsen left office in 1993.
Early in 2025, O’Rourke teased he might run again for office. Ultimately, he said he put his ego aside to look at how he could best help others on the ballot. That means shifting into less glamorous organizing activities to complement what statewide and local candidates are doing.
”I’m doing what I can, with what I have and where I am, to make sure we come through and save the country,” he said. “If Democrats lose, then the consolidation of power in the hands of the president will be unstoppable. This slide to authoritarianism will reach its natural conclusion. We will live in a fascist country.”
Check out more from my interview with O’Rourke in this week's episode, out now wherever you get your podcasts. And next week, I will drop the full audio and visual of the interview, which we did from the stage at Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin, one of state’s most legendary music halls.
Who's Up, Who's Down
A daily stock market-style report on key players in Texas politics.
Up: Greg Abbott.
It is a safe bet he will have more money for his re-election campaign than any Democrat who wins the March 3 primary. Abbott now has $105.7 million in his campaign account, thanks to raising $22.7 million in the second half of last year. His top donor in that stretch was S. Javaid Anwar, a Midland oil executive, who gave $1.5 million. He also received $1 million each from casino billionaire Miriam Adelson and the Texas Republican Leadership Fund, the political group established by Alex Fairly, an Amarillo businessman who is an emerging GOP megadonor.
Down: Republicans in Congress.
Virginia Democrats took a big step on Friday to redraw that state’s Congressional districts in response to Texas. Virginia lawmakers advanced a constitutional amendment that will go to voters to seek permission to redraw districts to make them more favorable to Democrats in hopes of picking up seats in the U.S. House. It comes five months after Texas put new maps in place to help Republicans in the U.S. House flip five seats in Texas. The nationwide redistricting war is all about one thing: who will control the U.S. House in 2026. Republicans hold a 5-seat majority in the House, but midterm elections are historically bad for the party of the president. Trump has pushed GOP states to redraw to make sure Democrats don’t control the House, where they can slow and even halt his agenda.
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.
What else is going on in Texas
 Photo by: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press |
The killing of Good has inflamed tensions in Texas, where Cornyn is locked in a tight race to defend his seat against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt. Read More |
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 Photo by: Jay Janner/American-Statesman |
The State Board of Education member and voucher critic could provide an early test of GOP support for Abbott’s signature policy. Read More |
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 Photo by: Eric Gay, AP |
The trial of former Uvalde school district police officer Adrian Gonzales, accused of failing to act immediately to stop the shooter, nears the end of its second week. Read More |
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 Photo by: Ken Ellis |
Midland Energy and Ryan LLC are top donors to candidates for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas fields, utilities and mining. Read More |
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 Photo by: Christian Chavez, Associated Press |
Another detainee who witnessed the incident told the Post they saw five guards choking Geraldo Lunas Campos as he repeatedly said “I cannot breathe.” Read More |
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Susan Barber
We are up with a new episode of the Texas Take podcast where Kat Vargas of Howdy Politics joins me to talk about the backlash to former Saturday Night Live cast member Bowen Yang and his podcast co-host Matt Rogers for their attacks on Democrat Jasmine Crockett. Plus, Julian Aguilar of the Houston Chronicle stops by to talk about the relationship between law enforcement and the community in Texas following the deadly shooting in Minnesota. I’ll get into how the basic training course for Texas law enforcement might help prevent a similar disaster from happening here.
What else I'm reading
Locked in one of the hottest GOP primaries in the nation, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is scheduled to be on Fox News Sunday with host Shannon Bream. In-person early voting in the Texas primaries begins on Feb. 17.
Events at the Chronicle
 Photo by: Houston Chronicle Staff |
Join politics reporters Jeremy Wallace, Raj Mankad, John Lomax and Nicole Hensley for a virtual roundtable on a very competitive 2026 primary election. |
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