O’Rourke bets shooting will shake up Texas governor’s race

WASHINGTON (AP) – Democratic Texas governor’s race candidate Beto O’Rourke is hoping the Uvalde school shooting can reset the contest in America’s largest red state.

That’s despite Republican Gov. Greg Abbott twice previously winning election by landslides and gun culture looming larger in Texas than perhaps anywhere else.

Following the massacre of 19 elementary school students and two teachers by a young man with an AR-15-style rifle last week, O’Rourke briefly seized the national political spotlight.

O’Rourke crashed Abbott’s news conference and said the carnage was predictable.

After a mass shooting in O’Rourke’s native El Paso in 2019, O’Rourke declared in a presidential debate, “Hell, yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15.”