Three weeks out from the Nov. 8 midterm election, Republicans are optimistic economic issues have overtaken the Supreme Court’s abortion decision and the shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School in the minds of voters as they head to the polls.
Rallying supporters in San Antonio on the first day of early voting Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott touted the state’s economic success and job growth, and projected confidence about the party’s prospects as he sought to boost two local incumbents, Reps. Steve Allison and John Lujan, as well as Congressional candidate Cassy Garcia.
“There’s a lot on the line in this election. There’s your safety, there’s your freedom. There’s your jobs, your taxes, and then maybe the most important, there are your values,” Abbott said to a packed house at Chris Madrid’s, the popular hamburger joint near North San Antonio.
Of Allison and Lujan, he told the crowd, “I know for a fact that we’re going to win these elections because we’re going to show the contrast between what the conservative principles have achieved in the state of Texas versus the radical leftist agenda that [Democrat] Beto O’Rourke is trying to impose.”
Abbott’s own high-profile reelection race has recently appeared less competitive, according to several public polls. A recent University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll showed him leading O’Rourke 54%-43% among Texans likely to vote in the 2022 election.
Among the challenges facing Democrats, strategists say, are that their leading campaign issues of abortion rights and gun safety have not stayed front of mind for voters amid inflation and economic uncertainty.
Speaking to reporters at a sparsely attended press conference that same morning, Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez — one of the governor’s most vocal critics in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting in his district — sought to remind voters Abbott had done little to prevent future tragedies like the one that occurred five months ago in Uvalde.
Despite calls from Democrats and some Republicans, Abbott declined to call a special session to address gun safety or school security issues.
Standing alongside Democratic statehouse hopefuls Becca Moyer DeFelice, Allison’s opponent in House District 121, and Frank Ramirez, who challenging Lujan in House District 118, at the Northeast Bexar County Democratic headquarters, Gutierrez rolled out legislation he plans to introduce in the coming session that would raise the age limit for purchasing a firearm from 18 years old to 21 — an idea that’s almost certain to fail as long as Abbott is in office. The Uvalde shooter purchased the weapons used in the massacre shortly after his 18th birthday.
“I’ve seen things now that are horrific,” Gutierrez said of the tragedy. “I will go back to the Legislature in January with a briefcase” containing photos of the children who died in the Uvalde shooting.
Gutierrez said he signed a nondisclosure agreement limiting some of the things he’s able to share with the public during an ongoing investigation into the day’s events. Members of the Texas Legislature, however, are allowed to see the images, he said.
“I’m going to show [the pictures] to every Republican in that building,” Gutierrez said.
Abbott carried Bexar County by roughly 4,000 votes in his 2014 race against Democrat Wendy Davis. But he lost the county to Democrat Lupe Valdez by roughly 35,000 votes in 2018 even as he carried the state with nearly 56% of the vote.
Little public polling exists on the county level.
Abbott’s popularity in Bexar County swung from roughly 70% approval before the pandemic, to a low of 38% in late September 2021, according to a nonpartisan Bexar Facts survey. It had risen to roughly 46% of respondents approving or somewhat approving of Abbott’s job performance as governor in the most recent survey in April.
At Monday’s campaign event Grant Moody, the Republican candidate for Precinct 3 on Bexar County Commissioners Court, was in attendance. Trish DeBerry, the GOP candidate for Bexar County judge, said she was unable to make it due to a scheduling conflict.
O’Rourke plans to rally with Democratic candidates Thursday at the Mission Library.
