AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke are making their final pitches to voters about who's the best man to lead Texas.
KVUE reached out to both candidates, inviting them to do interviews ahead of Election Day.
KVUE spoke with Gov. Abbott's campaign multiple times over the last few months to request interviews. We also invited him to conduct a live town hall on air to share his message with the voters. He declined those offers.
Abbott did sit down one-on-one with Jason Whitely, senior political reporter for KVUE's Dallas sister station, WFAA. He spoke about what his goals for a third term as governor would be. That interview can be found at the bottom of this article.
Meanwhile, during his final campaign stop in Austin, O'Rourke sat down with KVUE's Ashley Goudeau to talk about what it would take for him to win Texas.
Q: We're in the home stretch. How are you feeling heading into election day?
A: "Everything's on the line in this election – a woman's right to choose, a kid's right to survive the school year without being shot in their classroom, you know, our right to come together as a people, as a state, without being defined and divided by our differences. And we want to make sure that we win, and the people in Austin are doing the work to make sure that we win. So I feel really good coming back here."
Q: From the polls to the fundraising, this has been a tight race for you, but it cannot be lost on you the fact that a Democrat has not won a statewide election in Texas in almost 30 years. What is it going to take for a Democrat to win a seat here?
A: "We've got to bring out the people that we haven't heard from yet, whose votes haven't been counted, whose voices haven't been heard, the very people who are the targets of voter suppression and voter intimidation. If we can bring them out, they're the majority that's out there that would never stand for a total abortion ban without exception for rape, or incest or a grid failure in the middle of the energy capital of the world, or this exodus of teacher talent that we're seeing from our schools right now. But they've been the targets of this effort to disenfranchise our fellow Texans by the millions. So our campaign is all about knocking on their doors, bringing them in and making sure that they vote. When they vote, we win. And, so far, what we're seeing as we look at turnout around the state and the people who are turning out for the first time in their lives is very encouraging."
Q: The message that you feel resonating with those folks?
A: "Absolutely. And it's also helped by our current governor. I mean, after eight years of Greg Abbott, you have some of the highest property taxes in the country, some of the highest utility bills anywhere. You have him as the major driver of inflation. Homicides up 50% after he ignored advice from law enforcement and signed permitless carry into law. We lead the nation in school shootings, gun violence, the leading cause of death for children and teenagers. None of us are OK with this, and all of us want some kind of change. And those who will be voting in this election, either they voted early or the vote Tuesday on Election Day, I believe they're going to be voting for change."
Q: Gov. Abbott has spent his time painting you as being wrong for Texas, attacking some of your policies. And chief among them, the border, saying that you want open borders. What do you say to that?
A: "It's interesting. He's been the governor of the state of Texas for eight years. So what we have on the border right now, these stunts of bussing migrants to Washington or Chicago, more encounters at the border after Operation Lone Star and $4 billion of Texas taxpayer money spent than before Operation Lone Star. This is all on on him. What I want to do as a resident of the border, who with my wife, Amy, is raising our three kids on the border, is to make sure that we have solutions, things like a Texas-based guest worker program, so that if you want to come to this country, you've got to follow the law. And our laws are going to follow our values, our interests and our economic needs as well. We are a state of immigrants. We understand this issue better than anyone else. It's time that we started to lead on it, and when we vote for change on Nov. 8, we'll have somebody who will lead on it."
Q: What's the top priority, though, if you become governor?
A: "After eight years of Abbott? There are so many. I mean, we've got to fix this grid before we go into the next winter. It's not ready for the next time temperatures plunge in Texas. We've got to up teacher pay. We're going to continue to lose educators by the thousands across the state as we have been for the last two years. We must get Republicans and Democrats around the table to reduce gun violence. We lead the nation in the number of school shootings. Amy, in our race, three kids in El Paso. I talk to parents across the state. No one is OK with this status quo. And so raising the minimum age of purchase to 21 for an AR-15 or implementing a red flag law or a universal background check. I think we can get people around the table to agree on that much. That would be a great start for us as we move on to some of these bigger things, like expanding Medicaid in the state of Texas, making marijuana legal and doing other things are going to be in the best interests of every Texan."
Watch KVUE's full interview with O'Rourke below:
Watch WFAA's full interview with Abbott below:
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