Former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke said he does not want President Joe Biden’s help as he campaigns for governor of Texas.
O’Rourke was asked Friday whether he would welcome the president’s assistance in his effort, according to The Dallas Morning News.
“I’m not interested in any national politician — anyone outside of Texas — coming into this state to help decide the outcome of this,” he responded.
“I think we all want to make sure that we’re working with, listening to and voting with one another here in Texas,” O’Rourke said.
The Democrat, who failed in his 2018 bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, told reporters that the ineffectual nature of Washington politics has rendered all of its players irrelevant.
“No one in Washington, D.C., right now can help us with the challenges that we have,” he said. “This one is on all of us.”
O’Rourke, who at one time was among the pack of candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, had said last year that he did not see a Biden appearance as part of his candidacy, according to CNN.
“This campaign in Texas is not going to be about Joe Biden,” he said in November.
Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted since he took office, falling as low as 33 percent in some polls.
Stephanie Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project Action Fund, said unless and until Biden delivers on some core promises, his name is not a draw.
“We’re [canvassing] every single day, every single year, every single cycle, putting our word and our reputation on the line,” promising voters that “if you take action, things will change, things will get better,” Ali said, according to U.S. News and World Report.
“It’s not happening. If nothing changes, people aren’t going to keep coming out for you. You just can’t keep failing people.”
Beto O'Rourke 'not interested' in help from Biden during Texas gubernatorial campaignhttps://t.co/1J4f5TUUNE
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I don’t blame Robert Francis ORourke! He’s not very bright but he is bright enough to know Lunchpale Joe would sink him further!— G Christoph (@GChristoph1) January 23, 2022
Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Biden’s image as a man who could get things done has eroded, according to The Guardian.
“The whole first year is gone. And in the end, nothing,” Sabato said.
“But the voting rights debacle is the worst of all because why was Biden elected other than that people wanted to get rid of Trump?” he said, referring to former President Donald Trump. “It was because he was seen as experienced and competent. What’s the experience gotten us exactly? I just don’t understand how we got here.”
Sabato said even passing some pieces of Biden’s agenda will not alter the image that he failed.
“They may try to get pieces of Build Back Better, or build back something as we now call it, but everyone’s going to describe it as crumbs from the table,” he said.
“If they’d started with that, people would say, ‘Wow, that’s incredible, pre-K for everybody’, or whatever piece they decided to pick, it didn’t really matter which one,” Sabato said. “But now it will appear to people as this tiny piece of what the president started out with, [and] tremendous disappointment in Democratic ranks.
“By the end of the story, you won’t even know what passed.”