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00000175-b317-d35a-a3f7-bbdf00220000This legislative session, public radio stations across Texas are answering voters' questions about the elections. KUT has partnered with Houston Public Media, KERA News in Dallas, San Antonio's Texas Public Radio, Marfa Public Radio and Texas Standard to tackle crowdsourced questions from voters all over the state.

Beto O'Rourke On Possible Endorsement From Obama: 'I Don't Think We're Interested.'

Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune
Congressman Beto O'Rourke, who is running to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, speaks during the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday.

EL PASO — Former President Barack Obama has endorsed 11 Texas Democrats leading up to next month’s midterm elections. But none go by the popular four-letter moniker “Beto.”

On Thursday, the three-term Democratic congressman looking to unseat incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, had a simple response to being left off the list: We’re doing fine on our own.

“I don’t think we’re interested [in an endorsement],” Beto O’Rourke said after a town hall at a local high school. “I am so grateful to him for his service, he’s going to go down as one of the greatest presidents. And yet, this [election] is on Texas.”

Obama’s endorsements include five candidates for the Texas House and six vying for the U.S Congress, including O’Rourke’s likely Democratic successor, former El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar.

O’Rourke said his campaign didn’t reach out to the Obama camp for an endorsement and added that he’s been down this road before. When he ran what was considered his underdog 2012 campaign to defeat former U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the incumbent received nods from Obama and former President Bill Clinton.

It didn’t work then, O’Rourke said.

“Bill Clinton fills up the county coliseum and a screaming El Paso Times front page headline [said] "President urges El Paso to stick with Reyes,” he said. “And we won. And what that drove home for me is that someone else’s popularity is not transferrable to a given candidate.”

Meanwhile Cruz has accepted help from President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who campaigned for Cruz in Wichita Falls on Wednesday. The president has also announced an event with Cruz sometime this month in what he said would be the “biggest stadium in Texas.”

A date and location for Trump’s visit hasn’t been announced.

Julian Aguilar covered the 81st legislative session for the Rio Grande Guardian. Previously, he reported from the border for the Laredo Morning Times. A native of El Paso, he has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Texas and a master's degree in journalism from the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas.
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