The Houston Chronicle reports today on the importance of the ruby red Texas panhandle in the state's race for governor. Jeremy Wallace of the Austin Bureau leads with lots of atmospherics from Beto O'Rouke's 49-day Drive for Texas, but the headline is an ominous one for incumbent Greg Abbott, "How the biggest Republican stronghold in Texas could cost Gov. Abbott his job." Here's the lede:
Beto O'Rourke invited them into the shade on a searing 100-degree summer day.
He gave them cold water.
And then, they gave him hell.Greatly outnumbering his own supporters at Blodgett Park just miles from the Oklahoma border, protesters wearing Trump shirts and holding homemade signs quickly overwhelmed the El Paso Democrat's plans for a rally and charm offensive with shouts about their guns, their oil-based economy and the freedom to raise their cattle.
As they surrounded him, O'Rourke declared his support for the 2nd Amendment and his loyalty to the gas-burning pickup he just drove to the furthest reaches of the Texas Panhandle. As for beef, he testified to having "just ate a hamburger for dinner last night."
The rally never really got off the ground.
Instead, O'Rourke was stuck knocking down more incoming questions from the opposition than from his own small contingent of supporters in Spearman, a town of 3,100 people who voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in 2020.
"We wanted to send him a message. He's not welcome here," said Gyene Spivey, the Republican Party chairwoman for Hansford County. "I wish he'd just go back down the road to El Paso."
The exchange in the vast flatlands of the High Plains is more important to the future of the governor's race than at first glance. Voter registration data and recent election results show the campaign just might come down to places like Spearman and other sparsely populated towns in the Texas Panhandle and the plains to the south.
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