Is Texas Ready for Beto 4.0?

Robert Francis 'Beto' O'Rourke says he's not ruling out a 2026 Senate run, telling an interviewer that he's busy holding town hall meetings, and urging Democrats to become more "ruthless" in pursuit of power. The man is obviously running for something because he's always running for something. The son of a politician in Texas, the fourth-generation Irish-American has been seeking elective office for two decades. He was a local official in El Paso for years, then ran for Congress, getting elected for three terms. That's when his higher ambitions really entered full bloom. He became Democrats' US Senate nominee against Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, losing a fairly close (and exorbitantly expensive) race in a blue wave year. Four years later, Lone Star State Democrats nominated him as their gubernatorial standard bearer. Gov. Greg Abbott crushed him by double digits. Part of the reason Abbott trounced O'Rourke so handily was the laundry list of leftist positions O'Rourke adopted while he was appealing to national Democratic base between 2018 and 2022.

When he narrowly fell to Cruz, O'Rourke presented himself as a cheerful, energetic, and moderate-to-mainstream Texas Democrat. That schtick wasn't viable by the time he lost the contest for governor because during the interregnum, O'Rourke ran for president. During that campaign, which failed before the primaries even started, 'Beto' staked out extreme positions that certainly don't play in Texas. Among them, he insisted that churches that don't embrace same-sex marriage should lose their tax-exempt status. And not only did this border state Democrat he say he opposed the construction of new border barriers, he said he'd like to demolish the existing ones, too:

Democrat Beto O'Rourke says he wants to knock down the existing border barriers on the southern border

MSNBC's Chris Hayes: "If you could, would you take the wall down now? Knock it down?"

O'Rourke: "Yes, absolutely. I would take the wall down." pic.twitter.com/0jYSc1kKh8
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) February 15, 2019

The fact that he isn't ruling out another Senate run is likely code for "I'm running," considering that he previously reversed his own hard 'no' to launch a previous campaign. After falling to Cruz, O'Rourke categorically rejected the idea of running for president in the subsequent cycle. It wasn't a probably not. It was an absolutely not because doing so would destroy my family:

"Our family could not survive more of that," he said, explaining that criss-crossing the state had taken too much of a toll. Within months, he'd decided his family actually could survive him criss-crossing the whole country this time, trying to become president. That didn't work, of course, so then it was off to another statewide run for office, which ended in lopsided defeat. Why does he keep going? First, he holds his own political skills in very, very high regard. Vanity Fair infamously published a glossy cover story about his proto-campaign in 2019, featuring a quote from the man himself: "Man, I’m Just Born to Be In It" -- the 'it' being politics and power. Voters seem to keep disagreeing. Second, he has little to lose. He's become a perennial candidate and a career aspiring politician. He married into significant wealth, so as a Politico article put it, failure is very much an option for Beto. Here's an excerpt from the piece, entitled, "Beto's Long History of Failing Upward:"

His band didn’t catch on, his alt-weekly flopped and he lost his highest-profile race. Inside the long, risk-free rise of Beto O’Rourke...O’Rourke, 46, campaigns with the wanderlust of the wannabe punk rocker he once was and the vigor of the regular runner, hiker and cyclist he still is...The worst-case scenario? Something O’Rourke had done before. Just go home. Go back to El Paso. Failure, in fact, was an option. “Beto,” Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson told Texas Monthly in March 2017, “lives life with a cushy net beneath him.” “It wasn’t that big of a risk,” Texas-based GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser told me.

And now, he's looking like he wants to run yet again:

.@BetoORourke on whether he plans to run for Senate again in Texas: “I don't know… But I'm very optimistic about Democrats' opportunity in 2026.” pic.twitter.com/FFWQPtJE9T
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) July 20, 2025

Maybe Texas Democrats will make this person their guy for the third time since 2018 (with a fizzled presidential campaign thrown in there, too). Or maybe they're antsy and looking elsewhere:

New — Jasmine Crockett LEADS Colin Allred by 15 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup for Texas’ Dem Senate primary, according to a new NRSC poll.

Jasmine Crockett - 35%
Colin Allred - 20%
Beto O’Rourke - 13%
Joaquin Castro - 13%
Undecided - 18%
— Adam Pack (@packreports) July 9, 2025

Crockett, a caustic left-wing bomb-thrower, represents where the national party is headed -- which is why O'Rourke has continued to embrace fringe positions. It's what the base demands. But they might just be bored of him and all his losing. That said, Republicans should beware. Even though they've racked up bruising statewide victory margins in 2022 and 2024, a very messy GOP primary situation, and the real possibility of a galactically-flawed Republican nominee, means that Democrats wouldn't be crazy to view the seat as winnable. Winnable with Jasmine Crockett or Beto O'Rourke? I suppose we may find out soon enough. Choose wisely, Texas Republicans. I'll leave you with this:

Robert Francis ‘Beto’ O’Rourke seems to be gearing up for yet another political campaign, having run unsuccessfully for POTUS, Senator and Governor. He’s always running. He even ran for the WH after saying doing so would destroy his family. He did it anyway. And lost. pic.twitter.com/QzsmabXLce
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 21, 2025

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