Rep. Beto O'Rourke, in Wichita Falls: Party not important, improving lives is

Trish Choate | For the Times Record News

Show Caption Hide Caption U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke stops in Wichita County for town hall Candidate for the U.S. Senate Beto O’Rourke continued his 34-day grassroots drive across Texas with a return to Wichita County on Wednesday.

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke hasn’t been focusing on how red or blue Texas is with 97 days to go in the battle for a U.S. Senate seat.

Instead, he has been intent on uniting Lone Star State voters behind him to improve life for all as he sweeps across the state -- again -- in 34 days of campaigning. Wichita Falls was his fourth stop Wednesday.

“I don’t know whether Democrats or Republicans are on top. I really don’t care,” the Democrat from El Paso said in an interview with applause still echoing from his town hall speech.

COVERAGE FROM ABILENE: Democrats roar for O'Rourke

O’Rourke was preaching reaching across the aisle – or ignoring the divide altogether -- after a nearly hour-long stump speech to an adoring crowd of more than 450 people Wednesday evening downtown.

A line that would snake around the venue was forming to get a selfie and a handshake with him while he gave an interview.

“What I do know is that Texans are coming out and doing something really great right now, and we’re lucky enough to be a part of it, and it’s really exciting,” O’Rourke, 45, said.

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in nigh on two decades, but the man often referred to as “Beto” in casual conversation might not be such a longshot anymore.

A Texas Lyceum poll released Wednesday puts him just 2 points behind the Republican incumbent, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. But O’Rourke’s stances on guns, women’s rights and immigration could divide voters at the polls come Nov. 6.

In any case, Cruz garnered the support of 36 percent of registered voters polled while O’Rourke captured the support of 34 percent.

“This feels very possible,” O’Rourke said. “We’re going to win this by coming together, Republicans, Democrats, independents, folks who have not voted in the past.”

“The only way it’s going to work is if each of us makes the commitment to put country before party, before career, before the next election,” O’Rourke added.

He sees this as a moment bringing out the best in Texans, he said.

The crowd O’Rourke drew – in red North Texas – featured local leaders such as Mayor Stephen Santellana, a Republican, and City Council member Bobby Whitely, a union official.

Santellana sat on the front row and has featured largely in O’Rourke’s quest to learn more about Wichita Falls.

On a complete lark, never having met the mayor, O’Rourke said he reached out to the city leader, and they met.

“I never asked his party affiliation. He never asked mine,” O’Rourke said.

Santellana is fiercely proud of Wichita Falls, and he wanted to make sure the infrastructure was in place for farmers, ranchers and other residents just coming out of a drought, O’Rourke said.

After the speech, Santellana said O’Rourke called him not to talk politics but to generally know about Wichita Falls about 18 months ago.

They talked for two hours, and the congressman never mentioned an endorsement, Santellana said.

He marveled that after visiting the state’s 254 counties and probably meeting hundreds of mayors, O’Rourke knows him and recalls what they’ve talked about.

“I have 105,000 citizens here, and he is genuinely interested in every one,” the mayor said.

O’Rourke has never let their differing party affiliations get in the way, Santellana said.

It’s worth noting that the mayor has spoken at events featuring a Republican state Senate candidate, state Rep. Pat Fallon of Prosper.

During his speech, the congressman also emphasized the importance of keeping young people in cities such as Wichita Falls because if they leave, “everything that we’ve invested in them, all of our love, our caring, all of our tax dollars go somewhere else.”

O’Rourke believes providing funds for them to ensure them a debt-free higher education in exchange for returning to work for a certain number of years in their hometowns would help tremendously in that mission.

During his speech, O’Rourke addressed gun issues, saying he supports universal background checks and doesn’t think anymore AR-15 rifles should be sold to the general public.

The rifle’s “high impact, high velocity round, whose exit wound is the size of an orange, creates such a wake of death and destruction that you will bleed to death before any doctor can get to you,” he said.

In an earlier visit to Wichita Falls, a Vietnam veteran told him the AR-15 has a sole purpose as a killing machine exterminating as many people as possible at a time.

“That weapon belongs on the battlefield,” O’Rourke said “It has no place in our schools, in our churches, in our public life. My message to those who own an AR-15 is to keep them. Use them responsibly. It’s just that we don’t need to sell more weapons of war into our communities.”

As for arming teachers, he said he views that as a distraction to what they’re supposed to be doing and feels other approaches, such as universal background checks, will make schools and everywhere else safer.

During his speech, O’Rourke spoke about his support of women’s right to choose and the need to protect it, and several women in the audience stood up to give him a standing ovation.

When he spoke of immigration issues, he noted the hard work that immigrants do – which Americans don’t want to take on – and called for immigration policies that don’t involve building a costly wall or militarizing the border.

“He spoke to what is concerning a lot of us,” Janel Ponder Smith, chairwoman of the Wichita County Democratic Party, said after the event. “We need to quit being against each other and start working together to bring our country back to where it needs to be. We’re losing our democracy, and it’s going to take all of us to bring it back together.”

Democrat Catie Robinson, candidate for Wichita County Precinct 4 commissioner, said she thinks O’Rourke has a good chance of winning because he’s been drawing huge crowds all over Texas.

Robinson is seeking to unseat Commissioner Jeff Watts, a Republican.

Democrat Keven Lopez, who is running against Fallon for Senate District 30, agreed.

“He’s got a great message, a great platform that benefits all citizens of Texas, and that’s going to resonate come Nov. 6,” Lopez, a Bridgeport City Council member, said.

Audience members who turned out for the town hall ranged widely in age from millennials to the Greatest Generation, and Latinos, whites and African Americans were among those attending.

Darla Diltz, an opera professor, said she thought O’Rourke’s speech was “amazing, inspiring.”

Cole Alsup, a 22-year-old Midwestern State University student, said he loves how O’Rourke is so interested in children, the future of Texas and students like him.

“I feel like living in Texas is going to be a little bit easier and a little bit happier if he’s in the Senate,” Alsup said.

A 13-year-old from Dallas visiting his grandparents, Donna and Kenneth Aboussie of Wichita Falls, was standing in line to take a photo with O’Rourke.

“We don’t need Ted Cruz again,” Grayson Gaither said. “He’s not fixing Texas.”

On Wednesday, O’Rourke was on day four of 34 days of campaigning in a row, and he has already visited all 254 counties in Texas.

He is fueling his campaign on individual donations, forgoing contributions from political action committees and corporations.

This strategy yielded $10 million in donations from individuals in the last three months.

Cruz raised $4 million in the same time period, taking contributions from PACs and corporations.