Texas Governor Greg Abbott has expanded his lead over Beto O’Rourke in the Lone Star State. The pro-life governor is now ahead of his pro-abortion opponent 47%-38%.
According to the new Dallas Morning News poll, a slew of new television ads for Abbott helped propel him to a larger lead.
Abbott’s recent flood of TV ads, which for weeks went unanswered, and voters’ slight rightward tilt on abortion, the border and crime may have helped the two-term incumbent build on a 46%-39% lead in August, two political scientists agreed.
“A clear change in the election is that the Abbott campaign started advertising and they went negative, while being the only campaign on the air,” said poll director Mark Owens, who teaches political science at UT-Tyler. “Registered voters who say they saw the advertisements supported Gov. Abbott 23% more often.”
University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus said Abbott’s “solid and even growing lead” is a natural result of “the incumbency advantage” — his edge in money, broadcasting airtime and name recognition.
“People mostly are worried about the border and the economy. And when the race is about those things, Abbott’s in better shape because he’s perceived to handle those things much better.”
The Democrat’s lone television ad attacks Abbott for protecting babies from abortion.
O’Rourke, appearing to conserve his cash for later in the campaign, skipped running any biographical spots and made a light buy on Aug. 25 for an ad attacking Abbott-backed laws that virtually ban abortion in Texas. Otherwise, for three weeks and three days, Abbott had the airwaves to himself — until O’Rourke on Sept. 9 ran a statewide commercial in which a Fort Worth couple cited the state’s “trigger law” on abortion as too extreme.
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But the governor has highlighted how O’Rourke supports abortion up to birth.
While campaigning in Allen recently, CBS 11 asked Governor Abbott about O’Rourke’s criticism and if Texas Republicans went too far.
“On abortion, it’s Beto who’s an extremist because what Beto believes in is not only abortion of a fully developed baby to the very last second before that baby is born, he is even against a law that was proposed that would have required a doctor to provide medical care to a baby who survives abortion. That is murder,” he said.
As a Congressman, O’Rourke voted in 2015 against a bill that would have required doctors to provide proper medical care and treatment to a baby that survived an abortion.
Samantha Farnsworth of Texas Right to Life says the obvious choice for pro-life Texas voters is supporting Abbott.
Our life-saving laws were established by elected officials, including Governor Abbott, who won their elections due to their commitment to the Right to Life. Pro-Life Texans voted for a majority Pro-Life Legislature and for a Pro-Life governor who made the passage of our Pro-Life laws possible. Ending abortion was no secret goal of these Pro-Life elected officials, and now that Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortionists in Texas are shutting their doors, the Texans who voted for those legislators are celebrating.
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During his entire active political career, Beto has consistently voted against Life, making abortion one of his top priorities. While in US Congress from 2013-2019, Beto made his pro-abortion position abundantly clear. In both 2013 and 2015, he voted in favor of the Woman’s Health Protection Act, a bill which not only codified Roe, but would have overturned every single state-level protection for the preborn. He also voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill which would have banned abortions at 20 weeks nationally. These votes earned him 100% scores from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, and praise from anti-Lifers everywhere, encouraging him to run for higher office.
Beto was outspoken on his anti-Life position during his failed bids for Senate in 2018 and for the presidency in 2020. While on the campaign trail in 2019, Beto blasted then-candidate Joe Biden’s support for the life-saving Hyde amendment, an important element of federal legislation that prohibits the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. He called Biden “absolutely wrong” for refusing to condemn the long-standing bipartisan Hyde amendment.
When asked at a town hall whether he supports third trimester abortions, Beto responded that he believes “this is a decision that neither you, nor I, nor the United States government should be making. That’s a decision for the woman to make”, implicitly affirming that abortion should be legalized up until the moment of birth.
