Texas Democrats are fielding 150 candidates for the state's 150 house seats this cycle, the first time that has happened since 1972 — the year Beto O'Rourke was born.
O'Rourke lost his own Senate race to Ted Cruz by 2.6 percentage points in 2018. Eight years later, he says the numbers have turned: a Democrat outraising a Trump-backed opponent, a governor's race in play, and a turnout operation he credits with moving the youth vote from 39% to 79% in one election cycle.
"I want you to earn more than $7.25, which is a minimum wage in Texas, which means if you work one of those jobs, you're working three of those jobs to make ends meet."
O'Rourke came within 2.6 points of unseating Cruz in 2018 and now runs Powered by People, the voter-contact group he credits with that turnout swing.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 8 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Beto O'Rourke, former Democratic U.S. representative from Texas who ran for Senate against Ted Cruz in 2018 and now runs the voter-mobilization group Powered by People
🎙️ Hosts: Julie Fine, Bloomberg's Texas Bureau Chief, and Kailey Leinz, Bloomberg TV anchor and Washington correspondent
📰 Published: 10 September 2026 on the Bloomberg Talks feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 11 min
Key Takeaways
Texas Democrats are running 150 candidates for 150 state house seats, the biggest slate since 1972
O'Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by 2.6 points in 2018; he says this cycle is different "in the best possible way"
Money can't close the gap Tallarico is opening by campaigning in places both parties skip
He's canvassing the Rio Grande Valley and rural Texas even as Ken Paxton gets a fresh infusion from Trump
Trump's promised $5,000 payment is a gimmick that will never be paid, O'Rourke says
He'd rather campaign on the $7.25 Texas minimum wage and the cost of seeing a doctor
Moderate candidates can back Medicaid expansion and free tuition without adopting the DSA label
He says socialism itself came up "a total of zero" times on his statewide travels
Democrats are showing up on Turning Point USA's turf, a year after Charlie Kirk's death
Chapter presidents come talk to him too, he says, "looking for engagement and dialogue"
Registering a voter is the easy part — Powered by People stays in touch until the ballot is cast
9 million registered Texans sat out the 2022 governor's race despite the Uvalde shooting and the state's abortion law
Turning Point member volunteers moved youth turnout from 39% to 79% between elections
Greg Abbott has backed off calling Texas "the capital of AI" as data centers strain water and land
Democratic nominee Gina Hinojosa has made the issue central to her campaign
1. The 2018 Comparison
Bloomberg's host opened by asking what has changed since O'Rourke's own near-miss against Ted Cruz eight years ago, and what gives Texas House candidate James Tallarico a better shot this time.
The 2018 race set records without producing a win. "That 2018 race, no one expected a result like that. Largest voter turnout in the midterm in Texas history. We had gotten closer than any Democrat in decades." O'Rourke said the result still shifted power in the state house and in county commissioners' courts, and it launched Tallarico's own career as an insurgent who beat a well-funded Republican incumbent
This cycle's scale is different, in O'Rourke's telling. "We have 150 Democrats running for 150 state house seats. We haven't seen that since 1972, the year that I was born." He said the ballot also carries a competitive governor's race and several contested congressional seats
His bottom line on the race was direct. "I strongly believe that we are going to win and it will not just be for Senate."
2. Outworking Paxton's Money
Tallarico is outraising his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, though Paxton has just received new money from President Trump. The host asked what else Tallarico needs to do.
O'Rourke said the campaign's advantage is where it goes, not just what it raises. Tallarico is traveling to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, a region O'Rourke said is skipped by both parties because it's "so hard to get to," and to smaller rural communities he said get written off by one party and left behind by the other
He framed the contest as people against money. "Money cannot make up that difference. So no matter how much Elon Musk or Donald Trump or any other billionaire or corporation pour into this behind Republicans, James Tallarico has the people."
He read a set of Republican moves in Texas as signs of the opposite of confidence. He pointed to a mid-cycle party convention held in Dallas, the redrawing of five congressional seats, and moves by Trump to restrict voting by mail
Tarrant County closed 92 polling locations, in a county he called the third-fastest growing in Texas and home to the University of Texas at Arlington's 42,000 students. O'Rourke called all of it "signs of desperation and panic" from a party that knows it is going to lose
With 54 days left before the election, he said the campaign has to make the most of every one of them
3. Answering the $5K Pitch
President Trump used the first night of the Texas convention to promise every adult American citizen a $5,000 "Trump dividend" if Republicans hold Congress. The host asked how Democrats compete with a direct cash offer.
O'Rourke's counter-offer was about costs, not cash. "I want you to earn more than $7.25, which is a minimum wage in Texas, which means if you work one of those jobs, you're working three of those jobs to make ends meet." He paired it with being able to see a doctor, afford a child's therapy, and bring service members home from what he called "endless wars" in the Middle East
He dismissed the dividend as a promise with no track record behind it. "These gimmicks of the five thousand dollars, which will never get paid out because he's offered this before and he's never delivered, they're just not going to find hold with the American people right now."
His closing line on the exchange: "They want real change from real leaders. There's only one party he's offering that right now. It's the Democrats."
4. Owning the DSA Label
Asked how more moderate Democratic candidates should handle questions about Democratic Socialism, O'Rourke argued for sticking to specific policies rather than the label itself.
He named the policies he'd run on: expanding Medicaid at a minimum, making public university tuition more affordable, and restoring public funding for local schools that he said has been diverted to private schools through vouchers
Where his platform overlaps with the DSA's, he said that's fine, and where it doesn't, that's fine too. "As long as we're aligned on that, I think that's great. There's going to be some separation on other issues. That's OK as well."
He said the label itself is a non-issue on the ground. "I traveled to every single part of this state and the number of times that socialism has come up as an issue has been a total of zero."
5. Reaching Young Voters
The host connected the topic to the anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death and asked whether Democrats nationally are behind Turning Point USA's effort to reach young people.
O'Rourke said yes, and described the same complaint from students at every stop. "Very often students say, why aren't there more politicians of either party showing up to talk to us, to listen to us?"
He blamed the party's own habits for depressing youth turnout. "I think, unfortunately, historically, Democrats have written off young voters. They talk a good game, but they never show up to vote. I think the logic is we wouldn't vote either if no one had shown up for us."
The Turning Point chapters on campus aren't hostile to him showing up, in his account. "Very often when I'm on these campuses, I see the Turning Point chapter presidents. They come up and talk with us as well. They're looking for engagement and dialogue and change."
6. Registration Into Turnout
Asked how to convert campus registration drives into actual votes cast, O'Rourke pointed to the 2022 governor's race and Powered by People's own method.
He said 9 million registered Texans sat out the 2022 election despite two events that should have driven turnout. That ballot followed the murders of 19 children in Uvalde. "The governor had signed the most obscene abortion law in the country with no exception for rape, incest, the life of the mother." He added that Texas also has the country's least-insured population
His explanation is suppression, not apathy. "I believe it's not because they didn't care about these issues... I think the election interference from Republicans, the voter suppression, the closing down polling places, the voter ID, all that stuff has kept people from being able to exercise their right to vote."
The group's method is direct contact through the whole cycle. "So when we register someone on a college campus, we also ask them if we can stay in touch with them. We give them our cell phone number. We take theirs." He said they remind voters what ID to bring and where to vote, and stay in touch until the ballot is confirmed cast
The result he cites: in 2024, youth turnout moved from 39% to 79%. "This is the work that works, and Powered by People volunteers are all over the state of Texas right now as we speak doing this."
7. AI Jobs and Construction
Asked what young Texans are saying about AI and data centers, O'Rourke described a campus visit that turned into evidence of how students are already adjusting their plans.
He said construction management has become a visibly popular major at the University of Texas at Arlington, and that students told him directly why: "This is a job that AI is not going to be able to do."
He supports a pause on AI development, tying it to concerns about models "jailbreaking" the labs that build them and infringing on privacy, and connected that to what he called the "Flock camera surveillance state" being built out in Texas
He cast the politics of it as an opening for Democrats. "I think this is a great opportunity for Democrats... talking about this threat to our civil liberties, to our lives, to the United States Constitution, and saying that we're going to produce the change that protects you."
8. Abbott's U-Turn on AI
The final question turned to how a state that markets itself as business-friendly is handling new data center rules.
O'Rourke said Governor Greg Abbott has reversed course from earlier promotion of the state. "None other than Greg Abbott has changed his tune from claiming that Texas would be the capital of AI and just opening the doors, giving the farm away to every large corporation that wanted to build a data center through state incentives. He's now caught a whiff of the political winds and is trying to backtrack."
He linked the reversal to real strain on ranchers and farmers, citing falling water tables, degraded soil and worsening air quality as reasons it's "harder and harder to grow the food"
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa has made the issue central to her campaign, and O'Rourke predicted it will be "a deciding factor" in how rural Texans vote
Bonus Insights
O'Rourke said Powered by People's registration method is built to outlast the sign-up itself: volunteers exchange phone numbers with new voters and follow up on their ID requirements and polling location until the ballot is confirmed cast
O'Rourke's bottom line is that a Democratic ticket built on local wages, health care access and showing up in places both parties usually skip beats a one-time cash promise, and that the same organizing method that lifted youth turnout to 79% is what decides whether Tallarico closes the 2.6-point gap he could not in 2018.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Powered by People (O'Rourke's own voter-contact organization, which he credits with moving Texas youth turnout from 39% to 79% between elections)
Turning Point USA (Charlie Kirk's youth organizing group; O'Rourke said its campus chapter presidents engage with him directly rather than avoiding him)
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