Asked at a recent town hall what would energize Texans who don't normally vote, O'Rourke had a simple answer: health care.
“The overriding concern throughout Texas, big cities and small towns alike, Republicans and Democrats, is our ability to be well enough to do the things we’re intended to do in our lives,” he said.
Yet while the health care message may resonate with Democrats nationally, polls in Texas tell a different story. Health care may not be enough to tip the balance in favor of Democrats in this deeply conservative state.
Only 7 percent of registered voters polled in June — and 11 percent of Democrats — listed health care as the top issue facing Texas, behind immigration, border security and political corruption, and tied with education, according to the Texas Politics Project of the University of Texas.
“The people who are having the roughest time with the health care system are non-voters,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas project. “I don’t think [health care] would be salient in a way that would lead people to reconsider a vote for a Republican.”
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation/Episcopal Health Foundation survey, for example, found that nearly 70 percent of Hispanics in Texas had trouble affording health care, but the Texas Politics Project found that only 4 percent of Hispanics ranked it as the most important issue facing the state.
Still, the campaign has seen massive fundraising hauls. O’Rourke raised $10.4 million in the second quarter of the year — more than double what Cruz brought in. With four months until Election Day, O’Rourke has a campaign war chest of $14 million, compared with $10 million for Cruz, and he says that most of the money comes from small donors within the state.
And both Cruz and O’Rourke have been emphasizing the importance of the Senate seat in shaping the national health care debate — and the differences between the two candidates couldn’t be more stark.
At a town hall last Friday morning in Hillsboro, just north of Waco, a standing-room crowd of a couple hundred people, most there to hear O'Rourke, packed into folding chairs and leaned against the blue walls of a county courthouse in historic downtown.
While O’Rourke no longer uses phrases like “single-payer” or “Medicare for all,” the crowd cheered when he talked about the need for “universal, guaranteed, high-quality health care for all.”
And unlike Democrats running in other red states who hope to capitalize on the popular parts of Obamacare that kept Congress from repealing the law last year, O’Rourke isn’t shy about saying it doesn’t go far enough in providing universal coverage.
“We all get that what we have now might have been better than what preceded it," he said, citing Obamacare's protections for people with pre-existing conditions and the option for children to stay on a parent’s insurance until age 26. "But it is insufficient as premiums continue to go through the roof."
The message resonated among those who attended the gathering.
“I believe in single payer,” said Sue Talent, a retired state employee, who came with her husband David, a former heavy equipment mechanic. Both said that health care was the biggest issue facing state residents, although they have coverage through Veterans Affairs and the state.
Will Lowrance, who was mayor of Hillsboro from 2000 to 2006, said he hadn’t seen so many people in the town show up for a Democratic candidate in 25 years.
“Usually 30 people would be good,” Lowrance, a registered Republican who normally votes Democratic, said at the coffee shop next door, which was playing Christmas music in July. “I’m encouraged by the turnout.”