In what was presented as an interesting matchup by the mainstream media, Greg Abbott has soundly won re-election as Governor of Texas and Robert Francis ‘Beto’ O’Rourke has been defeated in his third major election in the past ten years.
According to NBC News, polls for a very brief period showed the race narrowing to a competitive one, until the polls turned against O’Rourke in recent weeks. According to RealClearPolitics. One poll conducted by the University of Houston had Abbott up by as much as 13 points.
RealClearPolitics reported as of 9:45 p.m. CST Nov. 8 that Abbott holds a 9.8% lead in the polls with 66% of precincts reporting.
BREAKING: Republican Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has defeated Democrat Beto O’Rourke.
— Election Wizard 🇺🇸 (@ElectionWiz) November 9, 2022
Many on Twitter have taken to anticipating ‘Beto’s’ upcoming Presidential election.
BREAKING: Republican Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has defeated Democrat Beto O’Rourke.
— Election Wizard 🇺🇸 (@ElectionWiz) November 9, 2022
News Nation reported that the race was called with Abbott at 51.09 percent of the vote.
Memorably, just days before his ignominious defeat, O’Rourke released a seriously questionable TikTok video in an effort to drum up voter turnout. Nate Hochman of National Review noted the potentially grievous error of the video days before the election. “How was this not flagged by a staffer? “Uhhh, yeah man, I don’t know about this one.”
How was this not flagged by a staffer? “Uhhh, yeah man, I don’t know about this one”
— Nate Hochman (@njhochman) November 3, 2022
O’Rourke’s campaign leveraged hard on ‘gun-control’ in the wake of the tragic Uvalde Elementary School shooting and a radical pro-abortion stance. NBC News reported that O’Rourke’s campaign claimed that three factors: the failure of the Texas power grid during a 2021 blizzard, the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the tragedy in Uvalde had made Abbott vulnerable.