Former Texas congressman and 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is refusing to commit to supporting fellow Democrats on the ticket if he were to secure the party’s nomination.
In a heated exchange reported by CNN , O’Rourke faced a New Hampshire voter who pressed him during a Friday campaign stop in Lebanon on his refusal to support Gina Ortiz Jones, a Texas Democrat who launched a failed bid for Congress in the 2018 midterms.
“I can’t take a pledge to support every single Democrat in the country,” O’Rourke told Deb Nelson, who chairs the Hanover/Lyme Democratic Party . “I need to know about them first, right? Would you want me to make a blanket commitment about people I know nothing about, who I’ve never met?”
Following O’Rourke’s decision not to back Ortiz Jones, Republican Rep. Will Hurd won his district’s seat on a razor-thin margin of just 1,150 votes, according to The New York Times .
Still, O’Rourke was credited with helping to prove that Democrats in Texas had a fighting chance after he narrowly lost to well-known Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that same year. The hard-fought race triggered what became known as the “Beto effect ,” showing political newcomers that they have a shot even when running against well-financed incumbents in areas where they’ve historically enjoyed strong support.
His coattails in the statewide race also appeared to benefit other Democrats on the ballot , with control of several U.S. House and state legislative seats flipping Democratic.
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