Beto O’Rourke will hold 70 campaign events in 49 days as gubernatorial election nears

Beto O’Rourke’s campaign announced this week the gubernatorial candidate will be embarking on a 49-day tour of the Lone Star state to hold 70 events and speak to voters in every part of Texas.

The campaign announced O’Rourke’s “A Drive for Texas” on its website this week, saying the tour “will focus on uniting people around the popular things that Democrats, Republicans and independents want to accomplish together: creating great jobs, investing in world-class schools, expanding health care so more people can see a doctor and lowering costs so families can afford to live in this state.”

The tour’s 70 events will span more than 65 counties and begin on July 19. The tour will begin in O’Rourke’s home town of El Paso and move from there to Pecos, Midland and Snyder in the following days. 

The ambitious tour takes place as the incumbent, Republican Greg Abbott, has seen his approval rating drop and disapproval rating increase amid the blowback from the enactment of restrictive state abortion laws and the botched police response to the Uvalde school shooting.

The Texas governor’s race is entering the home stretch ahead of the November midterms, and O’Rourke has seen the race tighten in his favor in recent weeks. A CBS News/YouGov poll published on June 30 showed Abbott leading O’Rourke 49 percent to 41 percent.

O’Rourke made an impromptu appearance at a press conference directly following the Robb Elementary School shooting where he lambasted Abbott and other lawmakers for their failure to act on gun safety even after other mass shooting events in the state.