Abbott, O’Rourke trade barbs on power grid, jobs

Democratic candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke left no doubt during a San Antonio campaign stop on Thursday that he’s going to be far more aggressive going after Gov. Greg Abbott than he was against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

“We are all paying the price for this guy’s corruption and his incompetence,” O’Rourke told more than 200 people at a rally just east of downtown, pinning the failures of the state’s electrical grid last year on the incumbent.

At almost the same time on Thursday, Abbott was about 10 miles away at his own campaign event in San Antonio slamming O’Rourke as a danger to Texas businesses and warning that if the Democrat were governor, he’d be hostile to the oil and gas jobs that are the backbone of the Texas economy.

“He would be crushing jobs in the state of Texas,” Abbott said, flanked by dozens of business leaders at Sunbelt Material Handling, a forklift dealership that opened just a month ago.

O’Rourke’s language was particularly stark compared to his 2018 campaign, when he resisted putting out negative ads or attacking Cruz on the campaign trail until the final weeks.

Thursday, O’Rourke doubled down, going on to say that campaign donations Abbott has received from electricity providers and gas companies were “pretty close to a bribe” given that the governor has not been more aggressive in policing them even after the freeze that killed 246 Texans.

The back-and-forth volleys follow days of the Republican governor accusing O’Rourke of lying about policy positions. Wednesday in Austin, Abbott’s campaign truck trolled an O’Rourke rally with a message board accusing O’Rourke of supporting border policies that help drug smugglers.

It’s all setting a tone for a negative campaign season, even before Abbott or O’Rourke has won his party’s primary.

But with early voting starting Monday in the primary elections, neither candidate said a word about them, instead digging in for their much-anticipated showdown that is still almost nine months away.

After his 20-minute speech peppered with attacks on Abbott, O’Rourke was unapologetic about his tone on the power grid issues and the governor’s handling of COVID-19.

“There is one man who bears responsibility for that and I’m going to make sure every single person in Texas knows that,” O’Rourke said.

Meanwhile, Abbott told his supporters how the state under his leadership has responded to the grid failures from last year. He said he signed 14 bills into law reforming the power grid and said the state did a better job making sure there was enough electricity being generated to get through this year’s winter storms.

“The power grid is more resilient, more stable, and stronger than it has ever been in the history of our state,” Abbott said.

He said during last week’s freezing temperatures, the grid had far more power than the state needed.

Abbott touts business growth

The companies that continue to move to Texas are further proof of the reliability of the grid, Abbott said, and the state is setting records for attracting business relocations. That wouldn’t be happening if they had concerns, he said.

As part of his event, Abbott had business groups such as the Texas Manufacturers Association and Texas Automobile Dealers Association singing his praises for creating a strong business environment in Texas — a similar message to the TV ads Abbott is running all over the state.

“Governor Abbott is a tireless champion for Texas job creators,” said Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business.

Abbott, a 64-year-old Wichita Falls native who is seeking his third term as governor, is aiming to make the state’s strong economy a key selling point in November.

O’Rourke, the 49-year-old former congressman from El Paso, retorted: “This governor is not making the state better for business, or economic growth or for the employees who drive the success of the companies for whom they work.”

O’Rourke said Republican attacks on abortion rights, underfunding of public education and failing to keep the lights on during storms are all bad for recruiting workers and businesses to Texas. Just as he started talking about the electricity grid failings, his own public address system’s power cut out.

“We don’t know if that was selective grid shutdown,” O’Rourke joked.

But that joke washed away quickly as he shifted back to accusing Abbott of corruption for taking campaign donations from oil and gas companies that made huge profits from the scarcity of electricity during the 2021 freeze.

Minutes after those words left O’Rourke’s mouth, Abbott’s campaign sent out a statement with the headline “Beto Lies,” focused on an entirely different issue.

It was in response to O’Rourke telling media in Tyler that he has no interest in confiscating anyone’s guns, despite statements O’Rourke made in 2019 calling for taking AR-15s and other dangerous weapons from their owners.

“This is yet another example of Beto O’Rourke lying to the public about his extreme liberal views that align him more with President Biden than the people of Texas,” said Mark Miner, Abbott’s communications director.

Bexar County’s importance

The back-and-forth in San Antonio illustrates how important Bexar County is for the two campaigns. In 2014, Abbott carried the county with 50 percent of the vote en route to winning his first term as governor. But in 2018, Abbott lost the county to Democrat Lupe Valdez, winning just 46 percent of the vote.

O’Rourke meanwhile won Bexar County in 2018 when he was running against Sen. Cruz, with 59 percent of the vote — the best showing in Bexar for a Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas since 1988 when the late-U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen won his final term in office. jeremy.wallace@chron.com