Beto O'Rourke Launches College Tour to Reach Young Texans
Former presidential candidate, U.S. representative, and now Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke is taking his campaign to young people across his home state. Starting April 1, O’Rourke is using his “People of Texas Campaign” to host more than a dozen town halls with young Texans. In explaining why O’Rourke is focused on young people, the campaign cites how central young people were to his 2018 Senate campaign: Youth voter turnout went up 500% during that race (which O’Rourke ultimately lost to incumbent Ted Cruz).
Appropriately, on April 2, O’Rourke will announce his travel plans directly to an audience of college students at the Texas College Democrats Statewide Convention, where he will deliver the keynote address. “The issues that are going to define this country going forward are going to be decided by young people,” Beto says in an interview with Teen Vogue. “I'm convinced of it. That's the way it's always been.”
O’Rourke recalls being told during his 2018 campaign that young people were unreliable voters. “I said, ‘Look, I might not vote either if no one ever showed up for me or listened to me or reflected back what was most important to me,'” he says. “Young people have proven themselves, literally, on the front lines of every major issue in American history. They proved themselves in transforming what was possible in Texas in 2018, and I'm going to make sure that they are front and center in what I'm doing in this campaign.”
O’Rourke has previously used his platform to speak out on issues that affect young people, including an op-ed he wrote for Teen Vogue about gun violence following a 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, his hometown.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/beto-orourke-exclusive-youth-town-hall
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