“It’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out at the old ball game—NOT until you get a hit,” said Billy Crystal in the comedy “Parental Guidance.”
Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, once a “rising star” in the Democrat Party, has now lost three straight bids for office. He previously ran for the Democrat nomination for U.S. president in 2020 and for the U.S. Senate in 2018.
Fox News reported that these failed bids for office cost roughly $175 million.
Nevertheless, The Atlantic‘s Jacob Stern argues that O’Rourke’s status as a “superstar loser” allows him to be a “loser with a legacy” by “framing an unexpectedly good performance in an unfavorable state as a sign of things to come.”
A former U.S. congressman from El Paso, O’Rourke dashed onto the national stage by challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his Senate seat, only to lose by nearly 200,000 votes.
Following this loss, O’Rourke threw his hat into the ring for president in the 2020 Democrat primary as one of nearly 30 candidates competing for the nomination. However, O’Rourke ended his candidacy before the primaries began due to low polling numbers.
During his presidential campaign, O’Rourke famously said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” only to flip-flop his position when competing in the 2022 Texas gubernatorial race and claim he didn’t want to take anything from anyone.
O’Rourke finally solidified his position in support of gun control following the devastating Uvalde massacre.
He also came under fire for supporting open border policies, trying to register dead voters, and supporting soft-on-crime policies (including defunding the police) in the lead-up to the election.
“With each new race he loses it becomes more difficult to convince voters and persuade them that he can still win the next race,” Sharon Navarro, a University of Texas at San Antonio political scientist, told The Texas Tribune.
In his concession speech Tuesday evening, O’Rourke said he would stay involved in “the fight” but didn’t know yet in what capacity. Many are theorizing that O’Rourke could have a future as a fundraiser or organizer for the Democrat Party in Texas, but any future election bids will be difficult, as convincing voters to support him after three failures will be a challenge.
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