Our CNN town hall with Rep. Beto O’Rourke has concluded. For more, see CNN Politics.
Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke just finished taking questions at a CNN town hall in McAllen, Texas. (CNN invited Republican Sen. Ted Cruz multiple times to appear tonight in his own town hall, but he declined.)
A new CNN poll, released Tuesday and conducted by SSRS, shows Cruz is well-positioned for re-election over O’Rourke.
The Republican is topping O’Rourke 52% to 45% among likely voters.
Just 9% of likely Texas voters say there’s a chance they could change their mind about the Senate contest before Election Day, although O’Rourke’s voters are more apt to be locked in to their choice (92% say their minds are made up) than are Cruz’s backers (87% say they’ve made a final decision).
Rep. Beto O’Rourke was asked by a member of the audience at CNN’s town hall tonight if he imagined himself one day running for president.
He said no, citing his young kids.
“The answer is no,” O’Rourke said, pointing out his wife in the audience – “the only one to clap during that.”
“Our children are 11, they’re 10, and 7 years old. We’ve told them we’re going to take these almost two years out of our life to run this race, and then we’re devoted and committed to being a family again.”
CNN’s Dana Bash followed up: “Is that a definitive no?”
“It’s a definitive no,” O’Rourke replied.
Bash followed up again: “Like never?”
“Let me put it this way,” O’Rourke said. “I promise to you and most importantly to the people of Texas, I’ll serve every single day of a six-year term in the United States senate and I won’t leave this state to run for president.”
“And if you don’t win?” Bash pressed.
“We’re back in El Paso.”
Beto O’Rourke suggested he regrets calling Ted Cruz “Lying Ted” during a debate Tuesday night. “It’s not something that I feel totally comfortable with, and perhaps in the heat of the moment I took a step too far,” O’Rourke said.
During their Tuesday night debate, O’Rourke had shot back after a Cruz attack over a vote on an oil tax, “It’s why the President called him ‘Lying Ted,’ and it’s why the nickname stuck – because it’s true.”
Explaining that quip at Thursday night’s town hall, O’Rourke said the decision came in the heat of the moment near the beginning of their second debate, after he felt Cruz had been dishonest about O’Rourke’s record in their first debate.
“I decided that, you could spend the rest of the debate responding to every single dishonest thing that he’d said, or I could make sure that everyone understands what he’s doing,” O’Rourke said.
Beto O’Rourke said he would vote to impeach President Donald Trump.
Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if he’s changed his mind after saying he’d vote to impeach Trump this summer, O’Rourke said, “I haven’t.”
He pointed to the ongoing probe into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
O’Rourke continued: “I would not prejudge the outcome of that trial. All I am saying is, there’s enough there. … I know that this is not politically easy or convenient to talk about, but 242 years into this experiment … nothing guarantees us a 243rd or a 244th.”
O’Rourke has avoided the topic recently, even as Republican Sen. Ted Cruz lambasted him in Tuesday night’s Senate debate on the topic, casting O’Rourke as too liberal for Texas.
Watch:
Beto O’Rourke explained why – despite being born Robert Francis O’Rourke – he goes by “Beto,” a nickname that led Donald Trump Jr. to call O’Rourke an “an Irish guy pretending to be Hispanic.”
Pointing to his upbringing in El Paso, a community he said is 80% Mexican-American, he said “Beto” is a common nickname for anyone with his name.
“That’s just part of who I am and where I’m from,” he said.
Watch:
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Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz had their second — and potentially final — debate for the Texas Senate race Tuesday night.
What this all means: O’Rourke’s aggressive tactic could be necessary. A new CNN poll out Tuesday showed Cruz with a 7 percentage point lead — consistent with other recent surveys that have shown the Republican clearly ahead.
CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash will moderate a live, one-hour town hall with Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is running for US Senate in Texas.
CNN invited O’Rourke’s opponent – GOP Sen. Ted Cruz – multiple times to appear in his own town hall, which is being held at McAllen Performing Arts Center near the US-Mexico border, but he declined.
