The call, which featured actor Eva Longoria riling up the troops and labor icon Dolores Huerta pledging to join O’Rourke in south Texas cities in September, was watched by an additional 40,000 people across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
O’Rourke, making one of his first appearances since a bacterial infection had sidelined him, spoke passionately on a wide range of issues including abortion, immigration, and ending “the schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline” for Latino students who are disproportionately suspended and expelled — all issues that his campaign believes he can win on in November to defeat Governor Greg Abbott, who is seeking a third term.
But beyond organizing and spending the candidate’s precious time in heavily-Hispanic metropolitan cities and border communities in the Rio Grande Valley, which the campaign has prioritized since the early days of the race, one question hung in the air during the call: how exactly does O’Rourke plan to get his message out to these voters in the sprawling state during the fall sprint to November?
That question will begin to be answered this week, as O’Rourke launches his first Spanish-language ad of the campaign on the issue of abortion, part of a $3 million investment in Spanish-language TV, the campaign told Newsweek, stressing that more investment would come across Spanish-language radio and digital platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
“For the first time in decades, we’ve got a Democrat running statewide for governor who has a well-financed campaign and can compete with Republicans on the airwaves to get our message out to different voters, which was not a factor with Lupe Valdez or Wendy Davis,” campaign spokesman Chris Evans told Newsweek, referring to Abbott’s previous Democratic opponents.
The stakes in the Latino community are high. When O’Rourke faced off against Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, 26% of the electorate were Hispanic. In 2020, 30% of eligible voters in Texas were Latino.
One thing that’s different from the failed 2018 campaign, however, is that the 2022 campaign has brought on Pescador Public Strategies, a Spanish-language media firm based in San Antonio, which has been integrated into the O’Rourke campaign structure and leads its TV, radio, and digital efforts in Spanish.
“How you reach Latinos in Texas is different than elsewhere,” Evans said. “Normally you get an English-language TV firm, and they do it all, but that’s how you get where you’ve gotten before.”
Laura Hernandez, a co-founder of Pescador, emphasized that an important part of the campaign is O’Rourke’s recognition that Latinos live in every nook and cranny of the state, which is why his state travel matters. Speaking in Madisonville, Texas, the mushroom capital of the state, she said a Latino attendee was struggling to ask a question in English and “lit up” when O’Rourke switched over to Spanish.
In addition to meeting Latinos in large Texas cities and towns, Hernandez said her firm’s expertise extends to reaching Hispanics in smaller markets, where internet and cable access are often limited, and satellite TV may be unaffordable. In those cases, the campaign often relies on small community radio stations for outreach.
Abbott has also been prioritizing south Texas. He announced a $2.75 million advertising investment in June that includes TV, radio, and digital platforms that targets border communities and San Antonio and Houston as well. His campaign, which has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Newsweek, remains confident on the issue of the Latino vote.
Speaking at the Texas Latino Conservatives luncheon in San Antonio in April, Abbott predicted that “I will get more than half of the Hispanic vote.” While polling does not appear to support his assertion, Republicans historically have sought to erode Democratic margins with Latinos to in order to win elections in Texas.
With August polls showing O’Rourke still trailing Abbott by about seven points, Republicans say his efforts with Latinos are too little, too late.
“How is he going to convince these Hispanic voters that he isn’t for defunding police, open borders, higher property taxes, and more regulation on the economy?” asked John Wittman, a former Abbott spokesman, chiding O’Rourke for “now deciding he wants to pump money into” reaching Latinos.
But the O’Rourke campaign, which Newsweek reported had staffers worried about “disappointing” Hispanic outreach in June, is now feeling buoyed by internal metrics.
O’Rourke is now outpacing Biden by about five points in the Harlingen media market, which includes Brownsville and McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), according to two campaign sources who spoke with Newsweek.
“The RGV knows Beto a lot more than they know Biden,” one campaign source said.
“The fact that Beto hasn’t been so close to Biden has been very helpful for him,” the second source added, noting that some people are extremely anti-Biden. “But they will vote for Beto, and I think the reason is that Beto never stopped showing up in south Texas.”
Republicans have pounced on O’Rourke’s apparent efforts to distance himself from Biden, with the Republican National Committee sending an email Monday titled “Beto can run, but he can’t hide,” which said that Vice President Kamala Harris visited Texas last week but O’Rourke was nowhere to be found.
“Beto will shake hands with anyone and everyone when it’s politically expedient for him,” RNC spokeswoman Macarena Martinez wrote, “but he is quick to turn his back when he no longer sees the benefit.”
But one aspect of O’Rourke’s campaign has drawn praise from Democrats: the elevation of Latinas to decision-making roles, with many flanking O’Rourke on the Zoom call two weeks ago.
They include his deputy campaign manager, Cynthia Cano; director of policy and research, Gina Hinojosa; political director, Irma Reyes; director of coalitions, Rebecca Marques; south Texas coalitions director, Amanda Salas; video manager, Chelsea Hernandez, and south Texas regional director, Selina Medrano.
While the campaign is coming out of the gate in Spanish with an ad on the Texas abortion ban that does not allow exceptions for incest or rape, it is also considering an ad on the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
The campaign told Newsweek that this shows it is not shying away from polarizing issues, and is willing to address them head-on when it comes to Latino voters.
“We know we have to talk to voters about the safety of their children in school, period,” Hernandez said.
She added that Latinos, and especially Latinas, are upset about the striking down of Roe v. Wade, and “will voice their disappointment or disagreement at the ballot box this election.”
Polls and studies in Texas in the last year have shown that a majority of Latinos support abortion access, and the O’Rourke campaign says the number is much higher when it comes to the issue of whether there should be exceptions in extreme situations.
“Latinos want to see ads on abortion and Uvalde,” a senior campaign source said. “If you ask Latinos and Latinas privately what they think about there being zero exceptions for rape and incest, over 80 to 90 percent are against a total abortion ban.”
The source said they’ve heard more recently about parents in group chats speaking about issues like abortion and guns, issues that were rarely discussed openly in the past.
The campaign hopes Texas policies that it lays at Abbott’s feet are enough for a shock on election day.
“We don’t need Latinos to be vocal about these issues,” the senior source said. “We just need them to do something about it when they’re in the voting booth.”
