Beto O'Rourke makes his own mythology

The brand Beto O'Rourke is already strong.

Until a few months ago, no one outside Texas really knew much about El Paso's Democratic deputy. But recently, his answer to the question of whether NFL players should kneel during the national anthem has become viral. He left for Ellen and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and was compared to an embarrassing Kennedy number of profiles touting his Senate candidacy against outgoing Republican President Ted Cruz in Texas. He goes to the town hall in the morning and wants you to know that he does not take money from PAC. He boasts of having visited the 254 counties of Texas – he is not the kind of democrat who will write the people who live in the country.

A candidate can only make a first impression, and we are at the heart of this magical and mythical moment for O'Rourke. GOP attacks against him for his arrest DWI 1998, his tendency to swear and his young hug of the punk aesthetics have turned against a younger online set. Twitter users cooed that O 'Rourke had warm air in his photo and that flower dress that he was ironing (?) In a group photo suited him. In defense of O'Rourke, Colbert pointed out that during Cruz's adolescence, the senator had already played Adam in a mimed version of the story of biblical creation. It's as if the cool kid of the high school ran against the nerve of the Latin club in the US Senate in Texas.

The intelligence of O 'Rourke's image brought him closer to Cruz. FiveThirtyEight gives O'Rourke a one in three chance of winning, about the same odds as the Democrats take the Senate as a whole. If O'Rourke gets away with it, the way he sells himself – an empath who can talk to independents and minority communities with the awakening of a man half his age – will have been a key factor. O'Rourke's star is expanding nationwide partly because the party's base sees him as the best version, a person capable of communicating his increasingly progressive values ​​to Americans outside. from the liberal world. Too bad for them, he will probably lose.

O'Rourke has the opportunity to present himself as a new vigorous and full of teeth. Cruz, meanwhile, is still the type about which a Republican colleague once said: "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate, no one would condemn you. Cruz is, and he is not particularly loved. A recent poll of Emerson College revealed that 44% of Texas voters had an unfavorable opinion on his part. (He finds himself in a state where he got 57% of the vote in 2012.) By the way, the same poll found that only 25% of those surveyed thought of O 'Rourke, while 11% did not. had never heard of him. neutral (only 18% were neutral on Cruz).

O'Rourke is a very good candidate in a race that was to be a slam dunk for the Republicans. He raised more than any other Democratic candidate in the Senate this cycle – $ 23 million – and integrated his progressive identity into something that, he hopes, is accepted as easily by the democratic base as by independent voters who still do not have in their minds. The GOP's attack ads attempted to portray the Democrat as out of the ordinary, although the 2018 Rourke iteration was more of a suburban dad than anything else, the type whose most -cultural is probably a monthly pass to climbing. Gym.

Recent surveys suggest that independents will help determine the close race. A survey of Dixie Strategies in early September showed that Cruz and O'Rourke were almost equal among the independents, with 20% of them having to decide. This poll and others showed that Cruz struggled with independent voters (only 2% had no opinion on him), while O 'Rourke's figures with independents showed that he could make a good impression (23% were undecided about how they felt about him). A poll conducted by Rasmussen / Pulse Opinion Research in early September showed that O'Rourke won 46% of the vote against 39% for Cruz. A more recent survey that showed Cruz at the top of the ranking also shows O'Rourke ahead of the independents.

O & # 39; Rourke is doing his best not to break his hopes with the independent voters of Texas, who, in this red state, could tend toward the most conservative part of the political spectrum (52% of independent voters in the state chose Trump). Election 2016). His rhetoric of solidarity seems to clearly target this population. "You can not be too Republican, you can not be too blue of a democrat, too independent. You can not be in jail for too long, you can not be too documentless to fight. It's for everyone, "O'Rourke said of his campaign in a speech this summer. His serious polish is polished to its highest luster. When asked questions that could easily lead to Trump's scrapping, O'Rourke talks about the importance of having "defenseless moments with each other". The label "across the hall" is important for his brand – O Rourke had his first viral moment in 2017 when he made a road trip with another Texas MP, a Republican.

The thing with branding, of course, is that it changes over time. O'Rourke has not always been allergic to CAP funds. He won his first congressional election by beating a Democratic candidate for eight positions. During this campaign, O'Rourke used the money from a super PAC to defend his longtime representatives. O'Rourke's father-in-law, a wealthy real estate developer, donated $ 18,750 to the CAP after maximizing his personal donation to the campaign.

One of O'Rourke's political strengths is his ability to brag about progressive ideas and bipartisan thinking at a time when political tribalism and racial tension are commonplace. This is partly because it is white and America – and the Democratic Party – seems to have a weakness for young white men running for office. O'Rourke looks like generations of white politicians, but he advocates societal changes for the benefit of minorities and disenfranchised immigrants. He called for single payer health care and Medicaid Enlargement, he wrote a book on the war on drugs, he made the legalization of marijuana a campaign topic and he wants the citizenship of immigrants who were illegally.

O'Rourke's adherence to Latin American culture was notable during the campaign. Much has been done because of this, it goes through his childhood nickname, Beto, which is a Spanish diminutive for "Roberto." Robert Francis O'Rourke is Irish-American, but he grew up in the highly Latino border town of El Paso and became Beto early. Cruz (full name of Rafael Edward Cruz) tried to use O'Rourke's nickname against the congressman to prove he was stingy with the growing Latin American population. Texas represents 39% of the Latin American population and augurs America's demographic future. According to population projections, the Latin American population could exceed the white population of the state by 2020 or 2022, while it is estimated that the United States as a whole will become the majority in 2045.

Note, however, what O'Rourke's nickname says about how assimilation has changed in America. Joe Kennedy ensured that his children went to boarding and university among the highest American WASP group, so they would be taken seriously. It worked – one became president. Beto is a nickname he honestly finds, but it's also a boon for O'Rourke to be comfortable with a community whose political weight will only increase in Texas.

The projected demographic change suggests political changes, which is why Democrats have long dreamed of transforming blue Texas. But state democrats remain politically at a disadvantage if they rely solely on the Latino vote as a path of change in the short term. According to Pew's 2016 figures, 79% of the state's white population is eligible, but only 46% of the Latin American population, and in the 2016 elections, 69% of Texas white voters voted for President Trump. And there is still a decent number of Latinos who support the Republican in the state – 34% voted for Trump in 2016, while 44% voted for Republican Governor Greg Abbott in 2014.

But if O'Rourke wants to win this the year, it must seduce those who are likely to vote and who have not decided. Even with increased participation from an enthusiastic Democrat base, he will likely need an extra boost to overcome the obstacles. This means that the popularity contest continues for the next two months. O'Rourke seems ready for the squeak.