Gov. Abbott responds to O'Rourke run for Governor

 The Lid:

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... Gov. Greg Abbott was asked about a potential challenge from O’Rourke, the Texas Tribune reported:

“You’re talking about a person who says they want to run for governor who said, ‘Heck yes,’ he’s gonna come and take your guns,” Abbott said, referring to O’Rourke’s 2019 embrace of a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons. “Heck yes, he’s for open borders. Heck yes, he’s for killing the energy sector and fossil fuels in the state of Texas. I don’t think that’s gonna sell real well.”

Not reported was how long Governor Abbot laughed after hearing the news.

O’Rourke said, “Whether or not I run, I will do everything in my power to elect a Governor who looks out for everyone, keeps Texans safe, answers to the people instead of the special interests & guarantees that we all have equal opportunity to achieve our best in life.”

Forget the 1st Amendment and, well, every Amendment! Who needs ’em? In Beto’s America, everything will be just dandy. But don’t forget…in Betoville, there are no guns for law-abiding citizens. Are we all good with that?–In Texas?

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He dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination a year before the general election.

After dropping out of the 2020 presidential primary, O’Rourke turned his attention back to state politics, plunging into the fight for the Texas House majority through a new political group, Powered by People. Abbott’s campaign aggressively used O’Rourke as a boogeyman in the House battle, which ended with Republicans holding on to their 83-member majority.

Abbott’s team doesn’t think Beto will run:

The morning after the November election, Abbott’s top political adviser, Dave Carney, said on a conference call with reporters that the governor’s campaign had been preparing for 2022 “since literally the day after ’18” and that he expected a $100 million “battle.” But Carney brushed off the possibility of an O’Rourke challenge, suggesting O’Rourke would be less enticed after Joe Biden failed to flip to Texas — and Donald Trump carried it by a wider-than-expected margin.

“I’ll bet you a steak dinner that doesn’t happen,” Carney said of an O’Rourke 2022 bid.

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 O'Rorke has certainly wasted a lot of other people's money unsuccessfully running for office.  While I have always like El Paso, politically it is an outlier in Texas.  Even the Lower Rio Grande Valley is moving to Republicans these days.