Friday on MSNBC, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) said Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden could beat President Donald Trump in Texas this November.
Host Chuck Todd asked, “Has this, Beto, you mentioned that obviously, this has hit the black and brown communities in Texas harder than the white communities. Is this making racial polarization, is this leadership at the top made the racial polarization worse in the state right now?”
O’Rourke said, “It has. And it’s connecting the dots for everyone, including white men such as myself, who understand it’s not simply a problem of criminal justice or police brutality. It is access to health care. It’s access to living-wage jobs in the state. It’s access to education. It’s access to housing. It’s access to equal treatment under the law. And this, Chuck, by the way, is further exacerbated because, as you probably know, our governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general are all fighting voting by mail in a state that has a primary run-off on July 14th, early voting is about to start. And they are promising to vigorously prosecute anyone who defies the order to vote in person should you want to vote, and we know that when they have vigorously prosecuted in the past, it again has been disproportionately against black and brown Texans.”
He added, “We are the lowest voter turnout state in the union not by accident but by design. More than a century of voter suppression, ever since the end of Reconstruction, and you have Greg Abbott just continuing that trend right now. So yes, people understand what is going on. But I have to tell you, we have been making hundreds of thousands of voter registration and voter contact calls all across the state of Texas. It’s not just those of us here in El Paso or Democrats even, Independents, Republicans, as well, know that we have to have a chance, and you saw the polling from Fox News yesterday, Joe Biden up one point over Donald Trump in the great state of Texas, so this is possible. We just have to make the most of this opportunity. Change those who are in these positions of public trust and have abused the trust, to put in new leadership.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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