Beto O’Rourke has spent 1,175 of the last 2,048 days running for office - The Washington Post

“We gotta bash this. There’s nary alternative.”

“Please station that photo.”

“It’s truly important that you stock the photograph contiguous connected each your networks.”

“Post that, OK? Tell radical you voted.”

“We gotta travel through. We’re going to travel through.”

One aft another, O’Rourke’s supporters heard this last invocation. It was a committedness — a vow of reassurance to the radical who gave their hearts to the Beto run 4 years agone successful his contention against Sen. Ted Cruz (R), erstwhile helium came arsenic adjacent arsenic immoderate Democrat successful much than 20 years to gathering a winning conjugation successful Texas, lone to autumn abbreviated by 2.6 percent points. It is besides a telephone of defiance — a refusal to judge polls and demographic trends that suggest an adjacent much achy decision ahead. But much than that, O’Rourke’s mantra was 1 helium seemed to accidental arsenic overmuch to himself arsenic to the radical astir him: We’re gonna win. We person to win. There is nary alternative.

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke has spent 1,175 of the past 2,048 days of his beingness moving for office. Three races successful six years: U.S. Senate, then president, present governor. O’Rourke is young, conscionable 50 years old. He has go the emblem of unrealized ambition successful the Democratic Party, a campaigner who has kept going and going and whitethorn support going still, adjacent if helium falls abbreviated connected Tuesday. Polls accidental Abbott, the eight-year Republican incumbent, a blimpish stalwart and a imaginable statesmanlike contender, has widened his pb successful the last agelong of the race. Early-vote numbers successful Texas are down compared to 2018, erstwhile O’Rourke capitalized connected absorption to Donald Trump’s presidency. O’Rourke is good known passim Texas, but helium has attached himself to progressive ideas that galore Texans ne'er liked. “Hell yes, we’re going to instrumentality your AR-15, your AK-47,” helium said during his statesmanlike bid, promoting mandatory weapon buybacks.

Across the country, Democrats are disquieted astir energizing voters, adjacent successful deep-blue states similar New York. Control of the House seems each but gone for Democrats, and the Senate bulk hangs by a spot here, oregon a spot there, successful Pennsylvania oregon Georgia oregon Arizona oregon Nevada. And past determination is O’Rourke, here successful Texas, inactive going, inactive trying.

“We gotta bash everything we can, right?”

“We each request immoderate anticipation close now. We gotta marque definite the anticipation is fulfilled.”

“We gotta win.”

“Tell everyone, OK?”

And truthful O’Rourke began the week earlier the election in his dark gray Toyota Tundra, kicking up gravel connected Interstate 2 successful the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a postulation of counties astatine the extremity of Texas that interaction the U.S.-Mexico border, telling voters not to springiness up connected an existent victory. He deed 8 polling locations successful little than 30 hours.

“People bash not privation to person their hearts breached again,” helium told them.

“Believe maine that this is possible, due to the fact that it is possible,” helium told them.

What other tin helium say? There is nary alternative.

O’Rourke is looking for thing that helium whitethorn not find. There is simply a mythical prime to what helium seeks: the unseen, yet-to-be reached elector who, if lone helium could “bring them in,” would grow a conjugation that allows him to win. Maybe successful different benignant of predetermination year, possibly successful different benignant of state, it would consciousness much successful reach.

But that’s wherefore O’Rourke is successful the valley.

His way to triumph against Abbott depends connected precocious turnout successful the large cities of Texas. But successful his mind, it besides lies here, done a sometimes neglected information of the electorate. O’Rourke is trying to scope radical who person ne'er voted before, who conscionable turned 18, who conscionable naturalized into the voting process — “people who’ve been drawn retired of our elections,” helium says. “They’re not successful anybody’s polling oregon turnout universe.”

This is wherefore he’s asking radical to instrumentality a representation with him and station it connected Instagram oregon Facebook oregon Twitter oregon the caller societal media tract BeReal. (“Are you connected BeReal?” helium asks Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro astatine 1 halt successful Cameron County. O’Rourke surely is.) If conscionable 1 person’s station tin promote different to ballot — a la an online influencer — past possibly helium tin execute a multiplying effect. “This volition interruption done to your friends successful the mode that I could never,” helium tells 1 pistillate successful Edinburg. Behind the ropeline, his longtime adjutant Chris Evans stands successful the assemblage with 2 phones. On one, helium broadcasts the country unrecorded connected O’Rourke’s Instagram. On the other, helium checks the provender successful real-time. At a halt successful Harlingen, 299 radical are watching. Other radical successful the assemblage are besides streaming: Six radical watching connected 1 person’s Instagram, 5 connected another, 2 connected another. In total, 312. When each halt is done, O’Rourke jumps down the instrumentality of his truck, drives to the adjacent parking batch and does it again. We’re gonna win. We person to win.

“A refrain that makes a ton of consciousness to maine is ‘action is the antidote to despair.’ And it is the cardinal to victory,” O’Rourke says, stopping to speech betwixt visits. “And I person to punctual myself of that. We each person to. And not conscionable successful elections — successful conscionable life. Gettin’ up successful the greeting and facing the challenges you have. Gotta instrumentality action, gotta beryllium successful motion, gotta beryllium with people. That each feels bully to me.”

O’Rourke is successful Edinburg, colonisation 104,871. Then Weslaco, colonisation 41,058. Then San Juan, colonisation 35,582. It’s Monday, Oct. 31, Halloween — 8 days until Election Day, though millions are already voting. A protagonist successful San Juan asks what O’Rourke is seeing successful the early-vote returns. “It started a small slow,” helium replies. By the pursuing day, there should be more data. “But that’s wherefore we’re here: We privation to propulsion and propulsion and push.”

Ten miles up the road, conscionable aft 6 p.m., O’Rourke makes his past halt of the time adjacent a polling tract successful McAllen, 1 of the largest cities successful the Rio Grande Valley. By now, the entity is purple, and a airy rainfall has darkened the parking batch asphalt. Amy O’Rourke, the candidate’s wife, joins the borderline of the assemblage aft a agelong time of canvassing. She has been by O’Rourke’s broadside done these six years of campaigns. He hasn’t won a contention since 2016, erstwhile helium was elected to his 3rd word in Congress, limiting himself to serving conscionable six years and seeking a promotion to the Senate. Since then, the rhythms of moving for office, though not governing, person go a imperishable diagnostic of the O’Rourke household life. What happens connected Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, erstwhile the O’Rourkes aftermath up and the contention is over? “There volition beryllium elements of a run that volition astir apt continue,” Amy says. “But we’re besides ace excited to conscionable beryllium together.”

As her hubby poses for pictures, Amy says the archetypal 2 years of the pandemic, which began soon aft O’Rourke dropped out of the statesmanlike contention earlier making it to the Iowa caucuses, was the “most concentrated clip we’d ever spent unneurotic arsenic a family.” The mates has 3 kids: Ulysses, 15; Molly, 14; and Henry, 12. At the tallness of covid isolation, they went connected hikes unneurotic astir their hometown of El Paso. They got a puppy. They built a chickenhearted coop astatine their house. The chickens roam astir successful the backyard. “And it was truthful great!” Finally, the kids had their dada to themselves — they don’t similar the “hoopla,” she says. “They conscionable privation to beryllium mean kids.” And past O’Rourke jumped into another race. What’s antithetic astir this 1 is the kids are aged capable to recognize the stakes. Molly ne'er showed overmuch involvement successful politics, Amy says, but aft the shooting successful Uvalde, wherever 19 students and 2 teachers died astatine Robb Elementary School successful May, she texted her dad, “We’ve gotta win.” A fewer months later, Ulysses turned to his ma and asked, “If we suffer this, what is my future?”

Across the parking batch successful McAllen, a radical of Abbott supporters signifier a enactment facing the Beto crowd.

“What glory is determination successful being a nonrecreational loser?” 1 antheral shouts.

“Former congressman — that’ll beryllium his title,” says another.

“Beto,” the archetypal antheral yells. “WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?”

Back successful the photograph line, O’Rourke keeps taking pictures.

“We’re gonna bash it.”

“We are gonna win.”

“Spread the word.”

The adjacent morning, the early-vote numbers are in. They don’t look good.

O’Rourke doesn’t notation it. The run has conscionable out-raised Abbott for the 3rd consecutive reporting period, and helium wants to speech astir that instead. In San Benito, astatine the candidate’s archetypal halt of the day, 1 of 5 helium volition marque connected Tuesday, the Texas Democratic Party chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, says successful a quiescent voice, a fewer yards from the crowd, that turnout “is not wherever we privation it to be.”

Hinojosa, who has served arsenic the apical Democrat successful the authorities for 10 years, thinks O’Rourke’s get-out-the-vote cognition this twelvemonth is “the astir organized” he’s ever seen successful Texas — an hold of the mobilization programme helium built in 2018. When it came clip to find a campaigner this time, to instrumentality up the situation of moving against a almighty Republican incumbent successful a historically challenging twelvemonth for Democrats, determination was nary question: “All of america needed idiosyncratic similar him to tally against Greg Abbott.”

“I’m definite it was a hard determination for him to make, due to the fact that of his family,” Hinojosa says. “He’s been campaigning virtually nonstop since 2017.”

And it was hard. Amy O’Rourke says she and her hubby “never looked astatine a poll,” nor did they see the circumstances of a hard midterm predetermination year, erstwhile a first-term president’s ain enactment historically loses seats crossed the country. “I don’t cognize that we considered each the challenges. It was much of, ‘It feels right.’” In Texas, wherever roughly 1 successful 5 voters are Latino, determination is different furniture of difficulty: immoderate of those voters are moving distant from the Democratic Party. In the 2 heavy Latino borderline counties O’Rourke visits successful this last week, Cameron and Hidalgo, Hillary Clinton won successful the 2016 statesmanlike race by margins of 33 and 41 percentage points, respectively. Four years later, that borderline shrunk by half: President Biden won Cameron by 13 percentage points and Hidalgo by 17 percentage points.

But who other was going to bash it? O’Rourke brings a level of passionateness and vigor that is not easy replicated, putting thousands of miles on his truck, packing his calendar with events. “There’s nary substitute for having charismatic, well-funded candidates to instrumentality connected an incumbent Republican,” Castro says arsenic helium watches O’Rourke enactment his mode done a photograph enactment successful Brownsville. “He does it all-in.”

Polls amusement O’Rourke trailing Abbott by an mean of 9 percent points, but connected the campaign trail, O’Rourke puts himself successful rooms that amusement a antithetic contention entirely: large crowds, “BETO” signs, “BE-TO” chants, Beto supporters who are devoted capable to station that picture, to sound connected doors, to telephone strangers successful a telephone bank. How helium thinks done what helium sees connected the way versus what helium sees successful the data, to O’Rourke, is not that complicated: “It’s conscionable however I’m wired and my constitution. I’ve conscionable ne'er truly taken overmuch banal successful polls,” helium says. In the 2018 Senate race, helium proudly reminded voters that helium ne'er commissioned a azygous poll. This time, helium did, if lone to marque definite helium has “the champion imaginable data,” arsenic helium puts it, to people the mode his run spends money.

The bigger strategical quality betwixt 2018 and 2022 seems to beryllium O’Rourke’s singular absorption connected his opponent. In speeches, he talks, astir often, astir Abbott. Under the governor’s tenure, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed authorities further restricting voting rights crossed Texas, granting partisan canvass watchers much autonomy, adding transgression penalties for breaking voting rules and banning drive-through and 24-hour voting. In the state’s superior predetermination this spring, thousands of mail-in ballots were rejected for failing to conscionable caller ID requirements.

O’Rourke has built a question to mobilize those voters successful a voting strategy helium calls “rigged,” but it’s not wide however overmuch of that unpaid infrastructure depends connected his beingness astatine the apical of the ticket. On the road, O’Rourke insists the enthusiasm astir him successful Texas is really not about him astatine each — “this won’t hap done a candidate,” helium says — truthful overmuch truthful that helium seldom talks astir his ain story, sometimes even dropping the first-person pronoun. Gotta instrumentality action, gotta beryllium successful motion, gotta beryllium with people.

Four years ago, aft his nonaccomplishment to Cruz, O’Rourke seemed lost, taking a roadworthy travel crossed the interior West, blogging arsenic helium drove much than 1,500 miles successful a jagged loop done New Mexico and Kansas and Colorado, past backmost to New Mexico and location to El Paso. He was “stuck,” helium wrote, “in and retired of a funk” and looking for “connection.” He grew a beard. He started filming himself successful online videos, including astatine a dentist appointment, successful speech with his hygienist astir beingness connected the border. Two months later, helium ran for president, but dropped retired successful November 2019 aft failing to interruption done successful a crowded field. By December of that year, helium had launched his adjacent venture: a elector registration effort called Powered by People. He wrote a publication astir voting rights and titled it “We’ve Got to Try.”

It was astir the clip that O’Rourke thought astir moving for president, though, successful the outpouring of 2019, that Democrats came to see a campaigner whose earnest presumption of politics, whose quality to animate young people, was bigger than his quality to present an existent victory. “Man, I’m conscionable calved to beryllium successful it,” helium told Vanity Fair successful a lengthy interview. The enactment became the headline. And the communicative became the screen of the magazine, featuring an Annie Leibovitz photograph of O’Rourke posing alongside his Tundra. O’Rourke later said the quote, and the determination to airs for the cover, had been a mistake, reinforcing “a cognition of privilege.”

O’Rourke tries to beryllium a much humble campaigner now, but erstwhile helium talks astir nationalist service, helium doesn’t dependable excessively antithetic from the antheral connected the screen of Vanity Fair. He inactive wants to be, and talks astir being, “in it.” The “it” is the race, the service, the action. When helium and his woman debrief their days connected the road, canvassing for votes, helium asks her afterward, “How bash you consciousness present that you’ve done that?” And Amy, helium explains, says she feels “awesome.” Like she’s “not watching this, oregon a witnesser to it. ‘I americium a player. I’m an actor. I americium idiosyncratic who’s doing something.’ So we each person a choice. And we’re choosing the work.”

O’Rourke speaks often successful these past fewer days of a choice betwixt opposites: enactment versus despair; a “player” versus idiosyncratic who decides to “go home, ticker the TV”; idiosyncratic who’s “in it” versus someone who sits it out. The choices are stark — nary gray, conscionable achromatic and white. Again, helium seems to beryllium successful speech with himself. But 1 opposition O’Rourke mentions, and helium does truthful often, seems more hard than the rest: “The anticipation that you’re bringing people,” helium says astatine 1 stop. “Do not let this to beryllium a mendacious hope.” O’Rourke says helium wants existent governmental power. Not the benignant that comes done nationalist influence. Not adjacent the benignant that builds enactment infrastructure. “The extremity is to win and to assistance people who are being severely wounded by this authorities close now,” helium says. “For immoderate of america who’ve tally for office, I don’t cognize that there’s a batch of conscious [thought] like, ‘Let’s physique retired the semipermanent infrastructure.’” He wants the benignant of power that changes policy, that wins elections. For a fig who has built a vocation connected “trying” — who, if helium comes up abbreviated connected Tuesday, whitethorn support trying — the enactment betwixt anticipation and mendacious anticipation is hard to gully done the committedness and aspiration of your ain governmental brand.

What is mendacious anticipation to O’Rourke?

“A mendacious anticipation means not coming done connected the aspirations that we've described.”

The nighttime earlier they permission the Rio Grande Valley, aft they conscionable up successful McAllen, Amy O’Rourke, arsenic usual, tells her hubby what she heard and felt portion knocking connected doors that day. There were a fewer people, she says, who told her she needed to manifest the aboriginal she wanted aft Nov. 8.

“The powerfulness of affirmative thinking.”

And it occurred to her then, actually, that she hadn’t thought overmuch astir it all.

Win oregon lose, Amy says, “I don’t often deliberation past November 8.”

“Do you?” she says she asked her husband.

He told her helium had. The mates talked astir what it would look similar if O’Rourke is elected, if helium someway proves the polling wrong, however helium would govern. The reply they landed connected was a elemental idea: “How important it is, adjacent erstwhile elected, that you support coming back.” That you support trying.

The last halt of the night is astatine a rally astatine Paso Real Hall, a euphony venue successful Cameron County, 13 miles from the border. Live Tejano euphony fills the ballroom, lit with bluish and pinkish neon lights. In beforehand of the stage, a assemblage of much than 500 forms a ellipse astir the halfway of the room, chanting the candidate’s name. “Be-to! Be-to!” At the halfway stands O’Rourke. “This whitethorn beryllium the past clip that I get a accidental to beryllium successful this assemblage arsenic your campaigner for governor,” helium says.

After the speech, Beto and Amy determination to a tiny gathering down the hallway to cod their things. As helium leaves, helium sees Amanda Elise Salas, his South Texas coalitions director, a staffer who has been with him since the aboriginal days of the 2018 race. “It’s conscionable precise idiosyncratic to me,” she says. “My full vocation has been astonishing due to the fact that of his career.”

She tells O’Rourke that “no 1 other has the balls” to tally against Abbott. She acknowledgment him.

“Ah, no,” O’Rourke says. “We’re each doing it. We’re each doing it.”

Salas starts to cry. O’Rourke hugs her.

“We person to win,” helium says. “We’re gonna win. We’re gonna win.”