Beto O’Rourke on His Big Texas Fight: “This Is for All the Marbles”

There’s the power that [California Governor] Gavin Newsom has—as you know, on that one, he’s moving forward. They have a very small window within which to act, and he’s taking maximum advantage of it to redraw California’s congressional districts to maximize Democratic advantage. Potentially every single district in the state of California. There’s potential in Maryland, in Illinois, in New Jersey, in New York, and in other states as well. I think on every single front, we have to be fighting with everything that we have.

Because—just to expand on the point you made—if we fail to stop this steal in Texas, if we fail to win a majority in the House of Representatives in 2026, the consolidation of authoritarian power in the hands of Trump will be close to unstoppable. Maybe completely unstoppable. And I’ll never stop fighting, but that fight becomes just extraordinarily challenging after ’26 if we fail to win a majority.

What happens is, you know—he is more free to send more plainclothes federal agents, without badges or warrants, to sweep people. Could be immigrants. Could be citizens. Really could be anybody. Because they’ve suspended due process and other constitutional protections. That continues—and grows larger. You have his political opponents targeted for retribution, or vengeance, or even political violence.