Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, on Monday launched his campaign to unseat Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2022.
The former El Paso congressman made the announcement in a fundraising email to supporters, where he touted himself as a unity candidate and railed against “fringe policies and incompetence that we see in Texas today,” reports The Hill.
“I am running for governor to serve ALL of the people of Texas,” he said. “I believe that the only way we are going to achieve great things for this state is by looking out for each other and moving forward together.”
This will be O’Rouke’s third run for office after a narrow loss for U.S. Senate in 2018 and a short-lived presidential run in 2020. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is running for a third term.
However, according to the Associated Press, Abbott’s usually good approval ratings have taken a dive over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Gov. Abbott has said Texas voters won’t forget O’Rourke calling for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons and aggressive action on climate change.
During his bid to become the Democratic candidate for president in 2019, O’Rouke adopted a number of progressive policies, including one on mandatory gun buybacks, saying at a debate that, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
This is a quote that will surely haunt him in a state with a prominent gun culture like Texas, and the Abbott camp will not let voters forget it, either.
His first statewide run in Texas, a long-shot Senate campaign against Republican Ted Cruz in 2018, electrified Democrats in a state where the party has rarely been competitive for a generation, according to CNN.
Many Democrats in Texas have identified O’Rouke’s campaign as the party’s only chance of beating Abbott. Texas has not elected a Democratic governor since Ann Richards in 1990.
