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Beto O’Rourke’s campaign for Texas governor is, to put it mildly, not going so well. The latest polls have him trailing Greg Abbott by seven or eight percentage points. The Democratic candidate, and enthusiastic furry, could really use a shot in the arm from his old pal and political ally Beyoncé. But Cockburn is skeptical about how likely that is.
When Robert Francis O’Rourke, aka Beto, ran to be one of Texas’s senators in 2018, high-profile Texan and Democrat Beyoncé Knowles-Carter waited until the day of the midterm elections to endorse him, after many had already voted.
Donning a “Beto For Senate” hat in an Instagram post, the singer encouraged her fans to run along to the polling station. The half-hearted seal of approval was not enough to carry him to victory: incumbent Ted Cruz beat him by around 215,000 votes, the closest margin in a Texas Senate race for forty years.
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Yet when Beto announced his presidential run against Donald Trump in the next cycle, the star was radio silent. Cockburn thinks this may have had to do with his declining popularity; after all, no one wants to cling onto a sinking ship.
But then again, it wouldn’t have been the first time that Queen Bey had backed a losing candidate. In 2015, the singer gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton.
Cockburn approached Beyoncé and Beto’s reps to enquire about whether an endorsement was in the works, but neither responded to offer comment.
Perhaps Beyoncé is taking time out from pushing politics to address her own dwindling stock. Sales have tanked for her latest album, Renaissance, released this summer. Probably best not to lecture people about politics when they aren’t even buying your music.
Texan political pundits aren’t surprised that Beyoncé hasn’t been forthcoming with her endorsement this time around. “The longer O’Rourke forces himself into the spotlight, the more obvious it becomes to everyone — even crazy Hollywood celebrities — that he is simply a political grifter who will say anything for attention,” conservative commentator and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales told Cockburn.
To the left, to the left… is Beyoncé putting everything Beto owns in a box to the left
