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      Republicans in Texas County, in Unusual Move, Upend Primary System

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      The G.O.P. in Potter County is planning to break away from a nonpartisan election board and hold its own primary next year, in a move criticized by election experts.The Republican Party in the second-largest county in the Texas Panhandle is planning to conduct its own election during the state primary in March, breaking away from a nonpartisan county election board in a highly unusual move.The G.O.P. in Potter County, which includes Amarillo, plans to use ballots that will be marked and counted by hand, rather than employ the electronic systems that the county has relied on for decades. Election experts said the changes would confuse voters and create more potential for fraud.Under Texas law, county parties are allowed to run their own primary elections, but the vast majority have contracted with local boards of election for decades. The decision, which was reported by Votebeat, an election news website, comes as Republicans nationally have continued to push baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election and sow doubts about the reliability of election machinery.Daniel L. Rogers, the chairman of the Potter County Republicans, said that he made the decision this week because “a lot of voters have concerns” with the electronic counters and “don’t feel comfortable with them.” He did not cite evidence of any problems arising under the current system, and studies have shown that hand counting leads to more inaccuracies. He argued that paper ballots would be more secure.“The parties have become lazy and complacent, but the primaries are actually the party’s responsibility,” said Mr. Rogers, a real estate broker whose office was decorated with red Make America Great Again hats when a New York Times reporter interviewed him last year. “The counties are spending millions of dollars on electronic systems, but this way it’s a true secret ballot.”He said that “the voters are smarter than our elected officials, than administrators — they don’t trust the voters. I do.”Mark P. Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston, said the move “removes the Republican Party one more step away from the standard electoral procedure.”He added: “The integrity of our electoral system depends on institutionalizing and professionalizing election boards. There will be more doubts about the overall outcome, or it will lead to more slip-ups and more potential flaws and problems than if the professionals ran it.”Potter County has about 57,000 registered voters, and they are overwhelmingly Republican: Roughly 70 percent cast their ballots for Donald J. Trump in 2020.Mr. Rogers, when asked if the election results nationally were valid, responded, “I don’t have any idea and that’s the problem — I don’t know if it was accurate or not.”Under state law, the county elections board will still be responsible for absentee and early voting, which a majority of voters in Texas use to cast their ballots. But the two systems, experts said, could complicate the process and make it easier for voters to cast ballots twice.“It opens the door wide to fraud,” Dr. Jones said. “It doesn’t close the door to fraud.”The legal office of the Texas secretary of state, who oversees elections in the state and who was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, raised several concerns about the move.“Any time that a party conducts their own election rather than contracting with a county, it is more confusing to voters,” said Sam Taylor, the assistant secretary of state for communications. Still, he added that “ultimately it’s their decision to go at it alone.”One risk, Mr. Taylor said, is that candidates in contested races could file election challenges to prompt a court to order a new primary election. “It’s not unprecedented,” he said. “But county parties usually do not invite that opportunity upon themselves.”“They have every legal right to do so,” he added. “We can’t really intervene.”Melynn Huntley, the Potter County elections administrator, said that she had been taken aback by Mr. Rogers’s decision and that she was most worried about the potential to make it easier to vote twice.“The biggest worry I have is that those two systems will not talk with each other,” Ms. Huntley said. “His desire is to eliminate fraud, but there is a vulnerability in the plan. I am concerned whether this can function with high integrity.”Ms. Huntley, who has served as elections administrator for eight years, said that when she took on the job, she pledged not to vote in either party’s primary so that she could maintain her role as a nonpartisan overseer.“I am truly trying to figure out how this is going to work,” she said. More

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      Sotomayor decries abortion ruling but court’s conservatives show their muscle

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      Sotomayor decries abortion ruling but court’s conservatives show their muscleThe highest court in the US has been defied by a group of extremist Republicans openly flouting the court’s own rulings Sonia Sotomayor, the liberal-leaning justice on the US supreme court, put it plainly. For almost three months, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature of Texas had “substantially suspended a constitutional guarantee: a pregnant woman’s right to control her own body”.“The court should have put an end to this madness months ago,” Sotomayor said.But when the supreme court issued on Friday its majority opinion on SB8, the extreme Texas law that bans abortions effectively at six weeks, in blatant violation of the court’s own constitutional rulings, it still didn’t put an end to the madness.Biden ‘concerned’ over supreme court’s Texas abortion ruling, says White House – liveRead moreIt allowed the law, the most restrictive currently in force in the US, to remain in effect.And by varying margins, the new conservative supermajority of the court, consolidated by Donald Trump’s appointment of three new rightwing justices, restricted the legal route by which abortion providers could challenge the law.From now on the legal battle would have to be focused narrowly on just four state employees responsible for medical licensing in the state. Other Texas officials involved, notably the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton and clerks in state courts, would be let off the hook.Even more provocatively, while the court sent the abortion fight back to a federal district court in Austin, it let the ban itself stand. That adds insult to injury given the supreme court’s much-criticised refusal to stay the ban at the start, not to mention the many weeks it has taken to hand down its decision.Over those weeks, Texas women have paid a heavy price. “The court’s delay in allowing this case to proceed has had catastrophic consequences for women seeking to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion in Texas,” Sotomayor said in a powerful dissenting opinion.In September alone, the first month of the ban, the number of legal abortions performed in Texas plummeted to about half the level a year ago. That was the largest recorded decline in the state’s recent history, with untold numbers of women forced to seek abortions out of state or carry unwanted pregnancies to term.Sotomayor, who is emerging as a pivotal voice of resistance within the post-Trump court, was forthright in her choice of words. Her disagreement with the conservative justices went far beyond a “quibble” over which state officials abortion providers can sue, she said.The question was: is the supreme court prepared to stand up in the name of constitutional rights to the cynical antics of ideologically driven Republicans in states such as Texas?“The choice to shrink from Texas’s challenge to federal supremacy will have far-reaching repercussions,” Sotomayor warned. “I doubt the court, let alone the country, is prepared for them.”Nobody can doubt that SB 8 is a flagrant violation of the constitutional right to an abortion enshrined in the 1973 landmark ruling Roe v Wade. While Roe sets the bar of fetal viability at about 24 weeks, Texas now puts it at the point of earliest cardiac activity, around six weeks – before many women even know they are pregnant.Neil Gorsuch, one of the three Trump appointees, who wrote Friday’s majority opinion, said that the issue of the constitutional right to an abortion was not under consideration in this case. The matter at hand in the Texas law was whether abortion providers could press on with their challenge to the ban by suing specific state officials.That will do little to assuage the jitters of 80% of Americans who think that abortions should be legal in all or certain circumstances. In a separate case before the supreme court based on a new Mississippi ban at 15 weeks, which is now blocked by a lower court, Roe v Wade is very much up for grabs, and the signs are ominous.In oral arguments in the Mississippi case less than two weeks ago, several of the conservative justices indicated they were willing to sharply restrict or even overturn the right to an abortion despite its rock-steady standing as a pillar of constitutional law for almost 50 years.Nor does Gorsuch’s protestation that Friday’s case was merely focused on procedural matters offer much comfort. SB 8 was devised by Texas Republicans as a juridical trick to skirt around constitutional protections by making it more difficult for abortion providers to challenge the law in federal court.At the heart of the legislation is a ruse designed to make a mockery of federal oversight. Enforcement of the abortion ban is transferred from state officials who are vulnerable to federal challenge to private individuals, armed with financial inducements of up to $10,000 to cover legal fees.Supreme court rules Texas abortion providers can sue over ban but won’t stop lawRead more“SB 8 is structured to thwart review and result in ‘a denial of any hearing’,” Sotomayor decried. “The events of the last three months have shown that the law has succeeded in its endeavor.”That is why the vote of the court’s new post-Trump majority to issue such a narrow opinion over SB 8 is more than a “quibble”. The highest court in the nation has been defied by a group of extremist Republicans openly flouting the court’s own rulings.In response, the conservative majority emboldened by Trump has opted not to insist on respect for the constitutional law of the land, but instead to blithely play along.As Sotomayor put it: “By so doing, the court leaves all manner of constitutional rights more vulnerable than ever before, to the great detriment of our constitution and our republic.”Perhaps most tellingly, the idea of appeasing Texas Republicans in their attempt to undermine the supreme court’s own precedents proved too much even for John Roberts, the chief justice.In important aspects of Friday’s decision, he broke with his five fellow conservative justices and sided pointedly with Sotomayor and the liberal minority.“The clear purpose and actual effect of SB 8 has been to nullify this court’s rulings,” Roberts said, in words which may reverberate down the years.“The role of the supreme court in our constitutional system is at stake.”TopicsUS newsTexasAbortionUS politicsUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More

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      How Much Are Latinos Shifting Right?

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      So far, the data remains mixed. And the defection of Ryan Guillen, a Texas state lawmaker, to the G.O.P. may not have been driven solely by ideology.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.For years, State Representative Ryan Guillen of Texas was regarded as the most conservative Democratic legislator in Austin. He was one of just a few from the party to vote in favor of carrying handguns without a permit, and the sole Democrat in the House chamber to vote for the state’s new law banning most abortions. He remained popular in his Rio Grande Valley district, winning re-election last year by 17 percentage points.Then came the news this month: He was switching parties.“After much consideration and prayer with my family, I feel that my fiscally conservative, pro-business, and pro-life values are no longer in step with the Democratic Party of today,” Mr. Guillen said.It’s an old saw in politics: I haven’t changed, the party has changed. And in the past, it has been fairly applied to both Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Guillen has portrayed himself as part of a trend of Hispanic voters moving toward the Republican Party, especially in South Texas, where Donald J. Trump made major inroads during the 2020 election. But it’s too soon to tell just how much of a lasting shift the movement represents.The Republican Party has been reaching out to Latino voters for decades, particularly in Texas. Former President George W. Bush famously courted them with his “compassionate conservatism.” And it was former President Ronald Reagan who told his Hispanic outreach director that he would have the easiest job in the world, because “Hispanics are already Republicans, they just don’t know it yet.”Historically, roughly 30 percent of Hispanic voters have chosen to vote Republican in presidential elections, a number that increased slightly in 2020, surprising many Democrats. Republicans, unsurprisingly, celebrated the shift and have portrayed it as a seismic shift that could transform the parties.“Republicans’ enthusiasm and sense of momentum ebbs and flows, and this is a moment of high enthusiasm,” said Geraldo Cadava, a professor of history at Northwestern University and the author of the book “The Hispanic Republican.” “They want to capitalize on the momentum they feel like they have right now. They really think the energy is on their side, but they have to prove that 2020 wasn’t just a blip.”So far, the data remains mixed. While there was some dampened enthusiasm among Latino voters during the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, for example, an analysis from the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles, showed that Latino-heavy precincts overwhelmingly backed Newsom’s remaining in office.But in San Antonio this month, Democrats lost another State House seat to a Hispanic Republican, John Lujan.Now, many Democrats are openly worried, with some calling Hispanics the new swing voter group.“Democrats have to prove that they can stop their losses, and they have to show these voters they are hearing them and caring about them,” Dr. Cadava said.Of course, perception can drive reality: If Latinos believe that Democrats take them for granted, they are more likely to vote for Republican candidates, according to analysis from Equis Research, a Washington-based firm that focuses on Latino voters across the country.Mr. Guillen, who did not respond to several messages from The Times, has fiercely embraced his new party, appearing with Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas during his party switch announcement and welcoming an endorsement from Mr. Trump by enthusiastically recalling how his signs “covered South Texas” during the presidential election. (Four years after Hillary Clinton won the district by 13 percentage points, Mr. Trump won by the same margin in 2020.)“Something is happening in South Texas, and many of us are waking up to the fact that the values of those in Washington, D.C., are not our values, not the values of most Texans,” Mr. Guillen told reporters during his announcement. “The ideology of defunding the police, of destroying the oil and gas industry and the chaos at our border is disastrous for those of us who live here in South Texas.”But ideology may not have been the only driver of Mr. Guillen’s decision, which came after Republican-controlled redistricting turned his legislative district from a Republican-leaning district into one that would most likely be solidly red.Mr. Guillen has brushed aside suggestions that he simply switched parties to stay in office, telling reporters that his 2020 victory as a Democrat showed his allegiance with voters in the district.“I have found that my core beliefs align with the Republican Party,” he said. “I am confident that my switch today is the right decision.”Mr. Abbott, for his part, portrayed Mr. Guillen’s flip as inevitable.“It’s something that has been, candidly, the worst-kept secret in the Capitol,” he said. “Ryan, we’re glad you finally came out of the closet.”On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com More

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      Matthew McConaughey Says He Will Not Run for Texas Governor

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      With about two weeks before the candidate filing deadline for the Texas primary, the actor said a run for office is “a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.”The actor and author Matthew McConaughey announced on Sunday that he would not run for governor of Texas for now, after months of weighing whether he would seek the office.In a video posted on Twitter and Instagram, Mr. McConaughey, 52, said running for governor is a “humbling and inspiring path to ponder.”“It is also a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment,” he said.Mr. McConaughey’s announcement came about two weeks before the candidate filing deadline for the Texas primary, and about two weeks after Beto O’Rourke, a former El Paso congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, announced his run for the office against Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican.🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/CKIYE7V6v6— Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) November 29, 2021
      Mr. McConaughey’s announcement also came weeks after he drew widespread attention for saying that he would not mandate vaccines for young children because he would like more information, adding that in his household, “we go slow on vaccinations, even before Covid.”Instead of running for governor, Mr. McConaughey said, he would continue to support entrepreneurs, businesses and foundations that are “leaders,” establishments that are “creating pathways for people to succeed in life,” and “organizations that have a mission to serve and build trust, while also generating prosperity.”“That’s the American dream,” he said. “And politicians? The good ones can help us get to where we need to go. Yeah, but let’s be clear: They can’t do anything for us unless we choose to do for ourselves.”When asked about whether he would run for governor in an interview in October on the New York Times podcast “Sway,” Mr. McConaughey said he was learning more about politics and measuring whether politics is “an embassy for me to be of the most use to myself, to my family, to the most amount of people in my life moving forward.”“I like to measure things before I partake,” he said on the podcast. “And you’ve got to partake before you’ve partook.”Mr. McConaughey is known for roles in movies that include “Interstellar,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” for which he won the Academy Award for best actor in 2014. Last year, he published a memoir, “Greenlights.”Mr. McConaughey had not previously indicated whether he would run for governor as a Republican or a Democrat.Mr. Abbott, who has been governor since 2014, is seeking a third term in a state where no Democrat has won a statewide election since 1994.In a poll released last week by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, voters said they would be more likely to support Mr. McConaughey than Mr. O’Rourke by almost 2-to-1.In a hypothetical three-way general election contest, Mr. Abbott was the favorite with 37 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. McConaughey with 27 percent and Mr. O’Rourke with 26 percent. Ten percent of voters in the poll wanted someone else. More

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      That ‘Team Beto’ Fund-Raising Email? It Might Not Be From Beto.

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      Mimicking official correspondence is an age-old marketing trick. But look-alike emails suggesting links to Beto O’Rourke’s campaign for governor show the tactic has accelerated in the digital era.Kenneth Pennington, a top digital strategist for Beto O’Rourke, had a simple plan.Mr. O’Rourke would announce his bid for governor of Texas early on a recent Monday morning and then Mr. Pennington would break the news via email to Mr. O’Rourke’s lucrative list of supporters, a loyal following that had already raised tens of millions of dollars for Mr. O’Rourke in his past bids for the Senate and the White House.But Mr. Pennington soon noticed something troubling: a parallel wave of look-alike emails from groups completely unaffiliated with the O’Rourke campaign that were designed to capitalize on the Texas Democrat’s moment. The emails used subject lines, sender names and URLs embedded with phrases like “team Beto” and “official Beto.” And in most cases, none of the money these emails eventually raised went directly to the campaign.Mr. O’Rourke still brought in more than $2 million from 31,000 donors, the largest 24-hour sum that any new candidate has announced this year, his campaign said. But for Mr. Pennington and the rest of the campaign, the nagging question was how much more they might have hauled in if other Democratic groups hadn’t been so busy siphoning off their share.“The frustrating thing,” Mr. Pennington said, “is we will never know how much we lost.”Welcome to the sometimes-sketchy world of online campaign fund-raising, where misdirection and misleading everyday Americans — often older Americans — to maximize clicks and cash is increasingly a dark art form.Imitating others and mimicking official correspondence with postage-paid mailers is an age-old trick that marketers have used since long before the internet. The tactic has been adapted and updated for the digital era — and appears to be accelerating in prevalence in the political sphere.At stake can be millions of dollars in an era when mass online political donating is in vogue in both parties. Copycatting Mr. O’Rourke’s brand surged in popularity recently, but on the Republican side, mimicking the brand of former President Donald J. Trump has been common for months.In some cases, established organizations are simply capitalizing on the day’s big news or the politician of the moment to gin up excitement among their own supporters with some verbal sleight-of-hand. In others, political action committees with anodyne names are raising funds in the name of a popular politician that they have no affiliation with at all. Mr. Pennington described such groups as “leeches” and “scam PACs.”Where the money goes from there can be murky, though big payments to the operatives and consulting firms that operate those PACs have drawn increasing scrutiny from political colleagues, regulators and law enforcement alike.Some of these operations are legal, sometimes burying the requisite disclaimers in the fine print. Others may not be. This month, the Justice Department charged three political operatives with running a scheme that prosecutors said defrauded small donors of $3.5 million.“I am not at all surprised that unscrupulous actors are essentially impersonating popular Democratic campaigns to try to raise money,” said Josh Nelson, a Democratic digital strategist who runs a firm, The Juggernaut Project, focused on growing email lists more ethically. “That’s the unfortunate trend we’ve seen.”Mr. Nelson has been publicly pressuring progressives to abandon more deceptive fund-raising tactics, and has asked the leading Democratic technology companies to intervene because new laws are unlikely to stiffen penalties for deception anytime soon.“Ultimately, I think it is going to take technology vendors cracking down on these tactics,” Mr. Nelson said.For now, there seems to be little that the most aggressive politicians and PACs in both parties won’t say to raise more money from online supporters.“Your covid test result,” read the alarming subject line of a fund-raising email from the campaign arm of House conservatives the day before Mr. O’Rourke entered the governor’s race. (The email was about mobilizing opposition to a Covid-19 vaccine mandate.)A new favorite tactic of the Republican National Committee has been making it appear as if supporters have urgent and overdue bills. “WARNING: Payment Incomplete” has been the sender line of more than 15 party emails since August, including one just before Thanksgiving. (A warning this week was about membership status as “Trump Social Media Founding Supporter.”)The day after Mr. O’Rourke’s announcement, the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, sent an email to supporters who had not ordered anything, using “Your Order Confirmation” as the sender and “Order ID: 73G526S” as the subject line. (The email was an effort to sell “Let’s Go Brandon” wrapping paper, which references a popular conservative phrase that has become a stand-in for an insult aimed at President Biden.)The House Conservatives Fund, the Republican National Committee and Mr. Abbott’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.Some of these examples may seem like easily detectable and even harmless deceptions. But strategists in both parties say a huge share of online cash is raised from older Americans who are less adroit online and have a harder time separating fact from hyperbole. The reason that so-called Nigerian prince scams exist, after all, is because people fall for them.When Mr. O’Rourke ran for Senate in 2018, he shattered Democratic fund-raising records, and his entry into the 2022 governor’s race has been highly anticipated. His campaign team held discussions before the announcement about how to limit the funds that less scrupulous actors might try to cannibalize.Two PACs sent out similar emails suggesting they were raising money for Mr. O’Rourke, using “team beto” and “official beto” in the URLs of their donation links. But all of the funds went directly to the PACs instead of the campaign.And outside groups did pounce almost immediately.“Official: Beto is in!!” came one such message the morning his run was announced. It listed its sender as “Team Beto (BSP).”The “BSP” stood for Blue South PAC, a new political action committee that sprung up this year and was among the more aggressive imitators of Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign. The group sent no less than five emails from a sender that included the phrase “Team Beto” in the campaign’s first three days.“At the very least, they’re trying to trick people into opening the email as if it’s from the campaign,” Mr. Pennington said, adding that he raced to send out the campaign’s first fund-raising message sooner than planned when he saw others already arriving.In one solicitation, the link to the Blue South PAC donation page on ActBlue, the Democratic digital donation-processing site, was highlighted in bright yellow and appeared as if it belonged to the campaign: actblue.com/donate/team-beto.Those who clicked were greeted by a message: “Show your support by donating and joining Team Beto!” Except 100 percent of the funds went to the Blue South PAC, according to the fine print on the donation page.A related group, Defeat Republicans, deployed a nearly identical email, featuring a similar URL highlighted in yellow: actblue.com/donate/official-beto.Both groups are linked to the same digital strategist, Zach Schreiber, who emailed a statement on behalf of both Blue South PAC and Defeat Republicans saying that their digital strategy was “in line with the industry best practices.”“Our community looks to us for news, action alerts, and opportunities to help elect Democrats,” the statement said, adding that the PACs “look forward to working with the Beto campaign.”Founded in the summer of 2020, Defeat Republicans raised almost $1 million in less than a year through the end of June 2021. In that time, federal records show it paid Mr. Schreiber $133,000 and directed another $208,000 to a firm, Opt-In Strategies, that lists him as a consultant on its website. Blue South PAC had spent only about $37,000 through the end of June, with more than one-third of the spending going to another consulting firm, UpWave Digital Solutions, founded by Mr. Schreiber.Federal records show that Defeat Republicans has given more than $400,000 to Democratic campaigns. The biggest chunk, $230,000, went to Jennifer Carroll Foy, who ran for governor of Virginia as a Democrat; Ms. Foy’s campaign paid Opt-In Strategies $67,500 for “list acquisition,” state records show. The PACs also said it had contributed $5,000 to Mr. O’Rourke.Plenty of other groups with missions that bear little relation to Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign seized on his entry into the race. These PACs have no formal affiliation with Mr. O’Rourke, even as they cite his campaign in fund-raising, and have no obligation to spend any of what they collect to help him.One PAC, The Majority Rules, ostensibly devoted to ending partisan gerrymandering, wrote an email to its list on Mr. O’Rourke’s first day that read, “The first 24 hours after a campaign announces are critical to its success. We still need another 103 grassroots Democrats to step up before midnight to give Beto the momentum he needs.”All the funds went to the PAC.A solicitation email sent from a PAC called 314 Action.Another PAC, 314 Action, devoted to electing scientists, sent an email with the subject line “BREAKING: Beto is running for Texas governor” the day he entered the race. The funds went to the PAC. The sender line in that email displayed as “Beto O’Rourke Update” — a format that industry insiders say can make it appear, at a glance, as if the politicians themselves sent the missive. (Directly using a politician’s name alone without consent is generally not allowed because it is seen as writing directly in his or her voice without authorization.)A nonprofit arm of 314 Action has announced it will spend up to $500,000 this year targeting four Republican governors, including Mr. Abbott of Texas. Joshua Morrow, the executive director of the 314 Action groups, did not respond to questions about the group’s fund-raising tactics but said in a statement that Mr. Abbott is “at the top of the list” of “anti-science politicians” they will target into 2022.314 Action uses other techniques to lure potential supporters, including sending three emails so far this month from “BREAKING from NBC News.” Another set of 314 Action emails used “NBC News Alert” in the sender line in September.Mr. Nelson, the Democratic digital strategist pressing his industry to curb such tactics, said groups keep doing it because it works — at least in the short term. But he worries that over time bad actors could poison the well for the whole party if donors stop trusting political groups with their money.“Ultimately there is a real risk that we’re going to push donors away,” he said. More

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      Beto O’Rourke to run for governor of Texas in 2022 election

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      Beto O’Rourke to run for governor of Texas in 2022 electionFormer congressman seeks to take on Greg Abbott, the Republican governor, following failed 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman, Senate candidate and contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, will run for governor in Texas next year.Steve Bannon surrenders over contempt charges for defying Capitol attack subpoena – liveRead moreO’Rourke, 49, is seeking to take on Greg Abbott, the Republican governor who is pursuing a third term.Abbott is seen as more vulnerable than previously, given demographic changes and events including the failure of much of the Texas power grid in very cold weather in February this year, which led to numerous deaths.“I’m running for governor,” O’Rourke announced on Monday. “Together, we can push past the small and divisive politics that we see in Texas today – and get back to the big, bold vision that used to define Texas. A Texas big enough for all of us.”Possible rivals include Matthew McConaughey, a Hollywood star who has flirted with a switch to politics.A recent poll by the University of Texas and the Austin American-Statesman gave Abbott 46% of the vote to 37% for O’Rourke but also put Abbott’s job disapproval rating at 48%. In September, Quinnipiac University found that 50% of Texas voters did not think O’Rourke would do a good job as governor; 49% said the same for McConaughey.In a statement, the Texas Democratic chair, Gilberto Hinojosa, said the party “welcomes Beto O’Rourke to the race for Texas governor. He has been a longtime champion for hard-working Texans and his announcement is another step towards driving out our failed governor.”Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, told the Guardian Abbott was “a formidable candidate” who had already “shown he can win statewide office” and “knows how to wield power”.But Abbott has been slammed on both sides of the political divide over his management of Covid-19. Facing protests over public health measures from the right of his own party, he course-corrected by throwing Texas open to business and trying to ban mask mandates in schools – even though young children could not then be vaccinated.Abbott has also used the legislature to shore up his conservative bona fides on issues like voting rights and abortion – a political calculation that may isolate some voters, Huerta said.“Can he win?” Huerta said, of O’Rourke. “I think there are some issues that are out there that he can capitalise on.”O’Rourke, from the border city of El Paso, can also call on a proven ground game to get out younger voters who trend Democratic but often have low turnout.“Beto O’Rourke has shown he has an ability to mobilise voters and get people engaged in politics,” Huerta said. “That’s why I’m wondering, would he be able to find examples of things that Abbott did, actions he took, things he advocated for that he can make issues in the 2022 gubernatorial election?”Democratic hopes of turning Texas blue, or at least purple, based on demographic changes involving increased Latino representation and liberals moving into the state, have repeatedly run up against hard political reality. The 2022 midterm elections may represent an even tougher task than usual, as Democrats face pushback against the Biden administration‘s first two years in office.“If you go back, election after election, newspapers always write the headline, ‘Will this be the election that Texas turns blue?’ said Emily M Farris, an associate professor of political science at Texas Christian University. “And it hasn’t happened yet.”O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate run, against Ted Cruz, was a case in point. The former congressman ran strongly but still fell short against a relatively unpopular Republican.O’Rourke then ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, starting brightly but flaming out amid missteps over media coverage and, some analysts said, a strong position on gun control that was at odds with voters in his home state.O’Rourke’s presidential bid left questions about whether he still wanted to run in Texas, Farris said. But O’Rourke has re-established himself in Lone Star politics through work for voter registration and activism amid the winter storm. More recently, O’Rourke stood alongside Texas Democrats to oppose a restrictive voting law introduced by state Republicans.Long road to recovery: effects of devastating winter freeze to haunt Texas for yearsRead moreSpeaking to the Texas Tribune in an interview to accompany his announcement for governor, O’Rourke also highlighted Texas Republicans’ introduction of one of the strictest and most controversial anti-abortion laws.O’Rourke is also a strong fundraiser, one of few Democrats who may be able to compete with Abbott’s massive war chest, which stood at $55m earlier this year.Hinojosa pointed to the Senate campaign in 2018, when he said “Beto rallied Texans by the millions – and showed the entire world that the roots of change run through Texas”.Abbott and O’Rourke have effectively been campaigning against each other already, Farris said. From here, Farris said, Abbott would probably try to draw attention to O’Rourke’s controversial comments on guns while O’Rourke was likely to zero in on the power grid failure last February.“I think those are gonna be at least what the two campaigns try to focus on,” she said.In his announcement video, O’Rourke said Abbott “doesn’t trust women to make their healthcare decisions, doesn’t trust police chiefs when they tell him not to sign the permit-less carry bill into law, he doesn’t trust voters so he changes the rules of our elections, and he doesn’t trust local communities” to make their own rules on Covid.Speaking to the Tribune, he said: “I’m running to serve the people of Texas and I want to make sure that we have a governor that serves everyone, helps to bring this state together to do the really big things before us and get past the small, divisive politics and policies of Greg Abbott. It is time for change.”TopicsBeto O’RourkeUS SenateTexasUS politicsDemocratsGreg AbbottnewsReuse this content More

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      Beto O’Rourke Announces Run for Texas Governor, Testing Democrats’ Strength

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      Mr. O’Rourke’s announcement on Monday sets the stage for a pitched political showdown over the future of the country’s largest Republican-led state.HOUSTON — Beto O’Rourke entered the race for Texas governor on Monday, challenging an ultraconservative and well-financed two-term Republican incumbent in a long-shot bid to win an office Democrats last occupied in 1995.The arrival of Mr. O’Rourke immediately set the stage for a pitched political showdown next November over the future of Texas at a time when the state — with its expanding cities and diversifying population — has appeared increasingly up for grabs.Mr. O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, has been a darling of Texas Democrats and party activists since his run against Senator Ted Cruz in 2018. Though he lost the Senate race by nearly three percentage points, the fact that he came close to unseating the incumbent Republican senator transformed Mr. O’Rourke into a national figure and convinced many Democrats that the state was on the cusp of turning blue.His campaign hopes to rekindle that enthusiasm as it tries to unseat Greg Abbott, the Republican governor seeking re-election to a third term. One recent public poll found Mr. O’Rourke nearly tied with Mr. Abbott in a hypothetical match up, and another showed him losing by nine percentage points.“Those in positions of public trust have stopped listening to, serving and paying attention to — and trusting — the people of Texas,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a video announcing his campaign that was released on Monday. He contrasted the “extremist policies” of Texas Republicans that have limited abortion and expanded gun rights with positions that he said he would support, including expanding Medicaid and legalizing marijuana.And the video sought to recapture the anger felt by Texans when the state’s power grid failed in February. “It’s a symptom of a much larger problem that we have in Texas right now,” he said.But Democrats have also seen their story of political change in Texas complicated by the results of the 2020 election.Former President Donald J. Trump carried the state by nearly six points and gained ground for Republicans among Hispanic voters in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley. Republicans also held the State House of Representatives despite a concerted effort by Democrats to flip control. And Republicans have had an electoral lock on the governor’s mansion that has stretched for nearly three decades. The last Democrat to serve as governor was Ann Richards, who won election in November 1990 and was in office from January 1991 to January 1995.The 2022 race will take place against a national backdrop that favors Republicans, including an economy still struggling to rebound from the pandemic and a Democratic president whose popularity has been sinking. And after his own failed presidential run, Mr. O’Rourke faces the challenge of demonstrating to Texas voters that he is focused on the state’s issues and not on the national spotlight.His advisers appeared to be aware of the need to remind voters of the actions Mr. O’Rourke has taken in Texas, particularly after the winter storm that led to the devastating blackout in February. Mr. O’Rourke solicited donations for storm victims, organized wellness checks for seniors and delivered water from his pickup truck.His organization, Powered by People, has also helped to register voters — nearly 200,000 since late 2019, according to the campaign — and Mr. O’Rourke raised around $700,000 to support Democrats in the Texas House after many fled to Washington to block a restrictive new voting measure that ultimately passed.He has also used his platform to push for pandemic-related public health measures like those backed by local Democratic leaders in Texas, a contrast to Mr. Abbott, who has banned mandates for masks or vaccines.The message of the campaign, his advisers said, is that Mr. O’Rourke has been there for Texans while Mr. Abbott has put his own political ambition and the demands of Republican primary voters over the needs of ordinary people.In the video, Mr. O’Rourke, who speaks fluent Spanish, made his announcement from the majority-Hispanic border city of El Paso, where he grew up and now lives.Democrats had been urging Mr. O’Rourke to jump into the race for months, and he had begun to strongly consider doing so by late summer as he called around to Democratic leaders in the state. Apart from giving them a shot at the governor’s mansion, Democrats are hoping that Mr. O’Rourke’s presence at the top of the ticket will increase turnout and help Democratic candidates in down-ballot races across Texas.With the election a little less than a year away, no other major Democrat has entered the race, leaving Mr. Abbott’s advisers to consider a range of messages to attack Mr. O’Rourke as too extreme for Texas. They are likely to focus on comments he made about guns and the border wall during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.“Republicans didn’t need a lot of reason to turn out and have intensity, but this is going to juice it,” said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin political consultant who is the chairman of the Republican Party in Travis County, referring to Mr. O’Rourke’s entering the race. “It’s going to be kryptonite for Democrats in suburban areas, and it’s going to be rocket fuel for Republicans in rural areas.”Well before Mr. O’Rourke’s announcement, the governor’s campaign began releasing digital ads featuring montages of those statements, including one from a 2019 debate that has come to define what some Texas political observers see as Mr. O’Rourke’s uphill battle in the state.Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More

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      DoJ sues Texas over new voting law, saying restrictions violate civil rights

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      Biden administrationDoJ sues Texas over new voting law, saying restrictions violate civil rightsSuit takes aim at two specific provisions that deal with providing assistance to voters at the polls and mail-in voting Sam Levine in New YorkThu 4 Nov 2021 17.56 EDTLast modified on Thu 4 Nov 2021 20.54 EDTThe Biden administration filed a federal lawsuit challenging Texas’s new voting law on Thursday, saying some of the state’s new restrictions violate key civil rights laws.The suit takes aim at two specific provisions in the Texas law that deal with providing assistance to voters at the polls and mail-in voting, respectively.The first measure restricts the kind of assistance people can provide at the polls to voters, blocking them from explaining how voting works or breaking down complex language on the ballot.Senate Democrats poised for voting rights push to counter Republican restrictionsRead moreThat violates a provision of the Voting Rights Act that guarantees that anyone who requires assistance because of “blindness, disability, or inability to read or write” can receive assistance, the Department of Justice said.“Prohibiting assistors from answering voters’ questions, responding to requests to clarify ballot translations, and confirming that voters with visual impairments have marked a ballot as intended will curtail fundamental voting rights without advancing any legitimate state interest,” DoJ lawyers wrote in their complaint.The complaint targets a second provision that requires voters to provide identification information on mail-in ballot applications as well as the ballot return envelopes.The new Texas law says that election workers have to reject the ballots if there are discrepancies in the identification provided.The justice department said that violates a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that says someone can’t be blocked from voting because of an error on a paper or record that is unrelated to their qualifications under state law to vote.“Conditioning the right to cast a mail ballot on a voter’s ability to recall and recite the identification number provided on an application for voter registration months or years before will curtail fundamental voting rights without advancing any legitimate state interest,” the complaint says.“Laws that impair eligible citizens’ access to the ballot box have no place in our democracy. Texas Senate Bill 1’s restrictions on voter assistance at the polls and on which absentee ballots cast by eligible voters can be accepted by election officials are unlawful and indefensible,” Kristen Clarke, the head of the Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement announcing the suit.“Texas leaders must be held accountable for their blatant abuse of power in a shameless attempt to keep themselves in power,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic party.The lawsuit comes as Joe Biden faces mounting pressure to enact federal legislation to protect voting rights.Republicans have successfully used the filibuster four times this year to block voting rights bills in the US Senate.The most recent filibuster came on Wednesday, when Republicans blocked a bill that would have restored a key part of the Voting Rights Act that required states with repeated evidence of voting discrimination, including Texas, to pre-clear voting laws with the federal government before they go into effect.Nineteen states have passed 33 laws this year restricting voting access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. This is the second major voting rights suit Biden’s DoJ has filed this year. It sued Georgia over its sweeping new voting restrictions in June.Many of the laws are widely understood as an effort to make it harder for minority populations and low-income people to vote.Texas Republicans say the changes provide safeguards against voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare.“Biden is coming after Texas for SB1, our recently enacted election integrity law,” tweeted Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general. “It’s a great and a much-needed bill. Ensuring Texas has safe, secure, and transparent elections is a top priority of mine. I will see you in court, Biden!”The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsBiden administrationUS politicsTexasUS voting rightsnewsReuse this content More