Beto O'Rourke Asked If He Will Run In Texas Senate Race Against Either Ken Paxton Or John Cornyn

On Sunday, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper about the upcoming Senate election in Texas.

Transcript

00:00Very quickly, if you would, there's obviously a Senate race coming up in Texas.

00:04John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican senator, facing a challenge inside his own party from Paxson,

00:10the controversial attorney general.

00:14And Democrats, obviously, are going to be running as a candidate as well.

00:18I know that you have been in a conference call with other potential Democratic candidates.

00:21Are you going to run for that seat?

00:23I don't know.

00:24Right now, I'm holding these town halls all over the state of Texas, across the country,

00:27to listen to people, to bring them together, and to channel our anger into action,

00:33registering people to vote, organizing with voters right now.

00:36But I'm very optimistic about Democrats' opportunity in 2026.

00:40In Trump's last midterm in 2018, when I was running against Ted Cruz,

00:43not only did we come close to defeating the sitting senator,

00:47but 12 insurgent Democrats defeated 12 incumbent Republicans in the state House.

00:52Colin Allred, Lizzie Pannel Fletcher, defeated entrenched, well-funded Republicans.

00:56You had 17 black women win judicial positions in Harris County, in Houston, Texas.

01:02It was transformational for the state of Texas.

01:04There will be a price for this extremism from Donald Trump,

01:08from the people that he's hurting across the country right now.

01:11And I think we'll see that play out in 2026.

01:13All right.

01:14Beto O'Rourke, former congressman from Texas, Democrat.

01:17Thanks so much for being here.

01:18Appreciate it.