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Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and former Democratic Congressman Beto ORourke faced off Friday, September 30 for a one hour televised debate in the Rio Grande Valleythe epicenter of Americas illegal immigration crisis under President Joe Biden.

It was no surprise that illegal immigration was the debates foremost topic. And the way the issue played out on the debate stage bodes ill for Democrats nationally.

Gov. Abbott touted his record in using state assetsboth the National Guard and state police in a combined effort known as Operation Lone Starto deal with the record numbers of people breaking U.S. immigration law by coming north, as well as the increasing flow of deadly drugs, such as fentanyl.

TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE BETO O'ROURKE DODGES TWICE WHEN ASKED IF HE WOULD 'TAKE YOUR AR-15'

ORourke countered with the risible claim that the border chaos is Abbotts fault (though $4 billion in Texas taxpayer dollars has been spent under Abbott, the flow of illegal aliens keeps increasing). ORourke was harshly critical of Abbotts initiative to bus illegal immigrants to large self-proclaimed sanctuary cities across the nation such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Texas Democrat gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks at a primary election gathering in Fort Worth, Texas, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Instead, ORourke said that people should be able to come to America to work, as well as to seek asylum. He even suggested that Texas have its own guest worker program.

In short, ORourke voiced an open border policy that the Biden administration has put into practice, while not actually admitting to the policy. ORourke even said that the chaos on the border wasnt Bidens faultit was Abbotts fault.

Abbott responded that ORourke was suggesting federal policy changesthings he might have voted on had he won the U.S. Senate race in 2018. Instead, Abbott maintained, it was the primary duty of a governor to do all he can to safeguard state residents against crime and illegal drugs caused by an open border while alleviating the strain on local communities by busing would-be migrants to larger cities better equipped to handle large numbers of people. Abbott also noted that Operation Lone Star had ceased enough fentanyl to kill millions of Texans.

TEXAS SHOWDOWN: GOP GOV. GREG ABBOTT AND DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER BETO OROURKE FACE-OFF FRIDAY NIGHT

Nationally, drug overdoses killed a record number of people last year107,000of whom the majority were killed by fentanyl poisoning. More people were killed last year by drugs than have died in all of Americas wars and military actions since World War II.

As ORourke was taking heat on an issue that polls clearly show is a weak spot for him, he countered by claiming that Abbotts hateful words on immigration will get people killed. He further claimed that Abbotts busing of illegal immigrants to Democratic-led sanctuary cities was the "kind of stunt we expect from Abbott."

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Abbott responded by noting that El Paso, with a Democratic mayor and city council (ORourke was once a city councilman there) has sent more buses of migrants to other cities than has the state of Texas under Abbott.

The remainder of the debate focused on gun control and school safety (about 10 minutes), abortion (five minutes), defund the police and rising crime (four minutes), the power grid (five minutes), and closed on education and property taxes.

That the debate was dominated by the illegal immigration crisis unleashed by Pres. Bidens sudden reversal of former President Donald Trumps policies doesnt bode well for Democrats nationally.

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ORourkes attempts to blame Abbott for Bidens immigration mess fell flat. Further, ORourke and the Democrats support open borderseven as they refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies.

Voters are likely to render a harsh verdict on Bidens unsecured border this November.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM CHUCK DeVORE

Chuck DeVore is a vice president with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was elected to the California legislature, is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, and the author of the new book, "Crisis of the House Never United."

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Why Democrats' illegal immigration views will haunt them in November - Fox News

It was the kind of gusher of hopefulness that ORourke at his boisterous rallies, in his prolific, small-dollar fundraising, trucking across Texas has met with ever since he burst into the national consciousness in his U.S. Senate run in 2018 and continued to inspire among Democrats in the early stages of his presidential campaign two years later.

But even here in Democratic-heavy Austin even to many of ORourkes supporters it is looking more and more like it may not add up to enough.

In other states, ever since the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, Democrats have been performing better than expected in the rejection of an anti-abortion rights ballot measure in Kansas and in special congressional elections in Nebraska, Minnesota and New York. President Joe Bidens public approval ratings have ticked up. But if the political winds of a post-Roe summer were lifting Democrats elsewhere, they do not appear to be blowing into Texas.

In a survey released in mid-September by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, ORourke was running 9 percentage points behind Abbott in the race for governor. A University of Texas/Texas Project poll put the margin at 5 points. A few days after the church service, ORourkes deficit registered in a Quinnipiac University poll at 7 points.

Those arent encouraging numbers for ORourke. And the top lines arent even the worst of it. In their lone debate, in an empty studio on Friday night, ORourke cast Abbott as extreme on abortion rights and as a failure on immigration and in his response to the school shooting in Uvalde in May. But when pollsters asked voters recently what mattered to them most, it was as though Texas hadnt changed at all. Immigration and border security not abortion or gun violence ranked first. And on immigration, Texans trusted Abbott over ORourke by double-digit margins.

Abbotts controversial busing of migrants out of state? A majority of Texas voters support it.

Near as we can tell, said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, the things that made the summer look good for Democrats and lead us to ask perhaps why isnt this race tighter theyve proven to be a little more ephemeral and not able to disrupt what is the basic pattern of politics in Texas.

The narrative in my mind is, we spent the summer talking about abortion, looking at the unending string of bad news and bad responses to Uvalde, and the difficulty that Abbott and his team had handling or not handling that, Henson said.

At least in the polling, it didnt appear to stick. What seemed like an apparent, potential shift in the issue agenda for the election, Henson said, seems to have not taken hold.

At the church, ORourke lingered until the line of photo-seekers was gone. And the morning after, on his 50th birthday, he rallied with supporters at the University of Texas at Austin. They wore T-shirts that said Beto for Texas or Beto for Yall, and four of them spelled out BETO in blue and white paint on their shirtless chests. They gave ORourke a cupcake and sang Happy Birthday. They stood in line to take photographs with him and to shake his hand, and they rang cowbells.

Yet if Texas Democrats adore ORourke as much as they did in 2018, the experience of his last two elections is now tempering their expectations.

Four years ago, when ORourke captivated Democrats with his Senate run against Ted Cruz, his near-miss represented the promise the states shifting demographics could have for the party, with a younger and more diverse electorate verging on turning the nations second-most populous state blue. But then came 2020. Donald Trump carried the state by nearly 6 percentage points while over-performing in the heavily Latino Rio Grande Valley. Democrats in Texas failed to make gains down ballot after picking up state house seats in 2018, while ORourkes presidential campaign imploded.

In government [class], we learn how to calculate if a candidate will win, Suly Ramirez-Hernandez, a student at the University of Texas at Austin rally, told me.

It was an imperfect kind of calculation, based in part on past performance. She said she hadnt done it for ORourke: Im scared it might not come back how I want it to.

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Beto O'Rourke Is Making His Last Stand in Texas - POLITICO

Sean Hannity discussed how Democrats have nothing to run on for midterms so they have turned to attempt to dehumanize Republicans on "Hannity."

SEAN HANNITY: DEMOCRATS IN WASHINGTO9N ARE TRYING TO PLAY POLITICS WITH HURRICANE IAN

SEAN HANNITY: And vile, personal attacks from the left are reaching a fever pitch, they can't run on their record. You know, with absolutely nothing positive to run on Democrats, they are now attempting to dehumanize Republicans all across the country in senatorial and gubernatorial races. They do so from a glass house. And tonight, we will expose two Democratic candidates for Senate who do not deserve the vote in their respective states. We begin in the great state of Georgia tonight.

Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, speaks during a campaign rally in Macon, Georgia, on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

While the media mob, they are obsessing over anonymous sources in The New York Times regurgitated by other media and fixated on family drama surrounding Republican Herschel Walker. They have been more than happy to ignore very serious allegations against the Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock.

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SEAN HANNITY: Democrats have nothing positive to run on - Fox News

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Once again, everyone cant stop talking about Beto ORourke.

FiveThirtyEights polling average shows a single-digit contest in the Texas gubernatorial race between ORourke and the Republican incumbent, Greg Abbott. Earlier this year, ORourke made headlines for his record-breaking fundraising, and the fallout from a succession of high-profile events in the state the triggering of a preexisting state law banning abortions, continued strains on the power grid and a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history are giving him unexpected leverage against Abbott. As a result, this gubernatorial election could be one of Texass most competitive since Democrats last held the office in the 1990s.

Lets be real about one thing, though: The overall electoral environment might be improving for Democrats, but ORourke is still a serious long shot. FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm-election forecast gives Abbott a 95-in-100 chance of besting his ubiquitous Democratic challenger. But is it possible that after his closer-than-expected Senate race against Ted Cruz in 2018 and rise to national prominence after a nearly eight-month campaign in the 2020 presidential election, a narrow loss against Abbott in November could be a victory for Texas Democrats in the long run?

The idea that ORourke could be laying the groundwork for future Democratic victories in Texas isnt a crazy one. After all, other Southern states like Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina have become somewhat more competitive over the past several election cycles. But another close statewide race for ORourke this year doesnt necessarily mean Texas is on the verge of turning blue or even purple. Thats because ORourke is, well, ORourke, and without a stronger campaign infrastructure throughout the state, it will be hard for most Texas Democrats running in statewide elections to replicate his level of fundraising and fanfare. And, fundamentally, Texas is still a red-leaning state.

ORourkes campaign style is hard to emulate because, for one, hes become a buzzy celebrity candidate since his 2018 race, and he has a gift for making headlines. When hes not standing up to hecklers at campaign events or interrupting Abbott at a news conference in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers died in a mass shooting, ORourke has made a name for himself by zig-zagging his Toyota Tundra across the state, snapping selfies with voters and dropping f-bombs to fire up his base.

As the chart below shows, public curiosity about ORourke has waned since his 2020 run, according to Google Trends data, but hes still able to draw national attention.

But politicians can only get so far on personality alone and ORourke is no exception. That doesnt mean he isnt a strong candidate, though. A poll fielded in late August and early September by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin gave Abbott only a 5-percentage-point edge over ORourke. And another, more recent, poll from Quinnipiac University conducted in late September gave Abbott a slightly larger, 7-point edge.

Still, its unlikely that ORourke will be able to build a lasting campaign infrastructure for future Texas Democrats to replicate if they want to run statewide. Thats because of one major problem: an apparent lack of organization among the Democratic Party in Texas. To build on ORourkes 2018 and likely 2022 margins against incumbent Republicans, the party would need to build and sustain a solid campaign infrastructure well past this years midterm elections.

One of the issues for Democrats here is that theres been a lot of turnover in their candidate pool, said James Henson, the executive director of the Texas Politics Project. To me, thats a pretty big indicator that theres not really an established, institutional foundation in the Democratic Party here in the way that you do see it on the Republican side.

In addition to issues with recruitment and turnover facing Democrats running in marquee Texas races save for ORourke and former oil executive Mike Collier, who is challenging Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick again after losing to him by 5 points in 2018 the party has run inexperienced candidates against formidable Republicans and doesnt have a presence in a sizable chunk of the state. Case in point: Over 50 of Texass 254 counties have no organized county party or leaders, according to the state Democratic Partys website. A notable number of those counties are in rural parts of the state too, and even in 2018, ORourke won the support of only 24 percent of the voters living in Texass 186 rural counties, according to The Texas Tribune. Cruz, in contrast, won over 75 percent of the vote there.

Moreover, Henson told me, theres no obvious successor who can build off and improve upon the infrastructure that ORourkes campaign has created. In the past, there were times when successful campaigns, at least indirectly, provided people with a model for organizing and professional skills, Henson said. But thats just not happening here in Texas. In 2018, ORourkes close contest against Cruz helped Democrats Lizzie Fletcher of Houston and Colin Allred of Dallas flip two congressional districts by each unseating a long-term Republican incumbent. Democrats had a net gain of 12 seats in the Texas House as well. But then, in 2020, Texas Democrats fell short of their electoral goals.

There are other reasons, though, why a close win for ORourke doesnt necessarily speak to Democrats political future in Texas. For one, the Republican Partys brand is still strong in Texas. When it comes to key policy issues, polling suggests that voters still overwhelmingly trust Republicans over Democrats. The August-September Texas Politics Project survey, for example, showed that voters were more likely to trust Abbott over ORourke on handling issues like the U.S.-Mexico border situation and the economy. Voters trusted ORourke more on abortion, however.

Yet while voters were divided over who could better handle gun violence, Texans said the top issues facing the state were border security, immigration, political corruption/leadership and inflation/rising prices abortion and gun control/gun violence were further down their list. That means that any Democrat running after ORourke would need to win voters trust on these issues and thats a tall order given that even ORourke has had only limited success.

On top of that, demographic changes in Texas that at one point may have been viewed as good news for Democrats might not end up working in their favor. The states Hispanic population is growing, but demographics are not destiny in American politics and those voters might be a hard bloc for Democrats to make further gains with, especially after Texass border counties moved sharply to the right in 2020. Voters in other rural parts of the state have also been hard for Democrats to win, and despite ORourkes campaigning in rural counties, its not clear whether even he is making significant inroads.

And so far, ORourke hasnt necessarily provided a foolproof model for winning over Republican and independent voters, whose support hed need to beat Abbott in what is still a red-leaning state. ORourke might be a major presence in Texas, but hes not actually that popular. A September poll from the University of Texas at Tyler for The Dallas Morning News, for instance, found that almost half of the states registered voters 47 percent had a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of ORourke compared with 40 percent who viewed him in a positive light. He didnt fare well with independent voters, either: 46 percent had an unfavorable view of ORourke versus 34 percent who had a favorable opinion.

The survey didnt ask respondents to assess Abbotts favorability, but exactly half of voters said they strongly or somewhat approved of his job performance as governor; meanwhile, 47 percent said they disapproved. Those numbers have given ORourkes opponents an opportunity, too. Since his presidential campaign, he has given Republicans a useful foil to inspire their own turnout.

In short, for Texas Democrats to succeed statewide, theyd need to have a healthy mixture of ORourkes popularity, an appeal to a wider swath of voters and, ideally, not be a bogeyman or bogey(wo)man for Republicans. Thats a big ask in a state that hasnt fielded especially strong Democratic candidates beyond ORourke in the past few statewide election cycles.

Of course, because the Democratic candidate is ORourke a micro-celebrity in the state and nationwide the race could be close. That said, his race likely wont say much about Texas Democrats larger ambitions to flip the state because theres still a lot of work that needs to be done before they get there.

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Democrats Need More Than Beto ORourke If They Want To Flip Texas - FiveThirtyEight

As summer began, it was unthinkable that Democrats in the midterm elections could keep control of the House of Representatives; as summer ends this week, its thinkable.

Its still very likely that Republicans will win more than the net of five seats necessary for the majority. They would be intent on making Joe Bidens life miserable for the next two years.

Yet Democrats today may have more current tailwinds than historic headwinds. Six reputable non-partisan congressional preference polls this month NPR/PBS/Marist, Wall Street Journal, Economist/YouGov, Fox News, Harvard-Harris and the New York Times-Siena all show Democrats leading; the average is more than three points.

This may be a political Prague spring. GOP voters may come home by November, and some polls again may be undercounting low propensity Donald Trump-loving voters. The betting markets still see a Republican House next year.

The buoyant optimism of Republicans peaked three months ago. After an initial analysis that redistricting was a partisan wash, Ohio Republicans, despite a court order, were able to keep their deeply gerrymandered map, while the equally gerrymandered Democratic-drawn map in New York was thrown out. These two outcomes may have gained five GOP seats.

But most everything since has cut against the Republicans: foremost, the Supreme Courts decision to end abortion protections, which has energized Democratic candidates and voters; Trump has been dominating the news, which Democrats believe helps them; gas prices are coming down a bit, and there have been some legislative achievements.

National tides will affect competitive house races, as will the quality of candidates and local politics.

There is no typical contest, but Ive selected several races in five states three in the usual Midwest battleground, plus Pennsylvania and California that crystallize the Democrats possibilities and the daunting challenge. These include both their own seats they must hold and prospects for pickups.

Pennsylvania: In the Keystone state, Republicans are targeting two Democratic incumbents:Matt Cartwright and Susan Wild in the swing Northeast part of the state; the Cook Political Reports Dave Wassermans PVI index the partisan voting index that reflects how each district performs at the presidential level compared to the country as a whole shows Republicans have a small edge in these districts. There also is an open seat in Western Pennsylvania rated a tossup.

The onus is on Democrats to win these three seats. The life raft may be the top of the ticket, which features especially weak Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.

Michigan: With an abortion referendum on the ballot, Democratic hopes have soared, perhaps enough to rescue an endangered incumbent, Dan Kildee, in his Flint-based district. Democrats got a break and should win a Grand Rapids seat after a Trump right-winger defeated a more moderate GOP incumbent in the primary.

It will take a blue wave in the Wolverine state, however, to win another seat in the lower peninsula, where Republican John James, who lost two close Senate, races, is the stronger candidate in a district with a PVI of plus-3 Republican. But his anti-abortion stance could make this a close contest.

Ohio: Republicans may have miscalculated in redistricting when they targeted Democrat Marcy Kaptur; her Toledo-based district now has a Republican partisan advantage, but the GOP then nominated P.J. Majewski, who attended the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and peddles QAnon conspiracy theories.

Conversely, they didnt protect Republican Cincinnati Congressman Steve Chabot the new district leans Democratic and Democrats are convinced theyll win this seat.

Tougher will be the open seat in northern Ohio. Most of this district has been represented by Tim Ryan, a Democrat whos running a very competitive Senate race; the redrawn district has a Republican edge.Democrats need to win all three of these Ohio seats.

Iowa: This is a tough nut for Democrats to crack in a state that has moved Republican red. Democrats are trying to knock off two freshman Republicans and hold onto their only member of the delegation. All three districts have a GOP PVI advantage.

Moreover, the Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and the 89-year-old seven-term Sen. Chuck Grassley are favored at the top of the ticket.

The glimmer of hope is Republican efforts to push through a heartbeat bill that would ban abortions after six weeks. The always reliable Anne Selzers Des Moines Register poll shows Iowans by 54 percent to 38 percent oppose this measure. Democrats have to win at least one, maybe two, of these seats.

California: Democrats enjoyed a banner year in 2018 that Republicans reversed two years later. Democrats have to win back three of these seats, represented by Republicans Michelle Steel in Orange County and further north, David Valadao and Mike Garcia. Valadao is one of only two Republicans who voted to impeach Trump still politically alive.

Joe Biden won these districts in 2020. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to win easily, and Democrats have an abortion rights referendum on the ballot to bring out more voters. All three of the GOP House targets are anti-abortion. Democrat Bill Carrick, an eminence grise of California politics, is optimistic about these races and ventures there are a couple other sleepers if theres a blue wave.

Overall, if Democrats win, say, 80 percent of the races in these five states, they have a shot at holding the House.

Thats a very tall order, but not unthinkable.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

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Democrats now have a chance however slim to retain control of the House - The Hill