SAN ANTONIO — The Alamo City was center stage of the Texas gubernatorial race for a few hours Thursday, when both Beto O'Rourke and Greg Abbott spoke within 30 minutes of each other at campaign events.
See former Congressman Beto O'Rourke's live event below:
At the event, O'Rourke focused primarily on Governor Abbott's handling of the power crisis in the 2021 Winter Storm Uri, noting that the power failures resulted in many deaths in Texas.
The Texas Department of State Health Services reports that 246 people died as a result of the storm.
"A 75-year-old veteran in Crosby, Texas, who served this country with distinction and Vietnam, freezing to death in his truck as he tried to charge his oxygen tank," O'Rourke said. "An 11-year-old boy in Conroe, Texas dying under the six blankets."
O'Rourke said many companies during the winter storm increased prices of natural gas as the state's power grid was experiencing massive failures. He accused Governor Abbott of not taking action against those companies.
"They made extraordinary, obscene profit, and then turned around and paid out to do nothing," O'Rourke said. "We, all of us, are paying the price and not just in terms of what we will see during the next extreme weather event."
He said local utilities across Texas are having to increase rates as a result.
"Your own utility right here in San Antonio. CPS has already had to jack the rates on every single utility in this city," O'Rourke said. "You are literally paying the average on every monthly utility bill this month, next month, and not just this year, but the projection is every year for the next two decades."
O'Rourke said he had a five-point plan to increase grid reliability and create a process to hold companies who try to price gouge accountable.
Ahead of O'Rourke's speech, Rosie Castro gave remarks at the event. She is the mother of twin brothers, Julian Castro, the former HUD secretary and former San Antonio Mayor, and Congressman Joaquin Castro. Beto thanked her for her time in public service fighting for civil rights, as well as her work on President Johnson's campaign in the 1960's.
O'Rourke, the biggest name out of the five Democrats vying for a primary win on March 1, will stop by San Antonio as part of his 12-day "Keeping the Lights On" road trip. The campaign event has focused on O'Rourke outlining his plans to fix the grid and bring utility costs down for taxpayers, time to the one-year anniversary of last year's disastrous winter storm.
He'll next visit Laredo, McAllen and other communities in the coming days.
Abbott, the incumbent competing for a third time as governor spoke 30 minutes earlier in a chat with Texas business leaders and organizations from across the state.
The most recent poll, administered by UT-Tyler and the Dallas Morning News in January, showed O'Rourke and Abbott as the leading contenders in their respective parties by a wide margin, based on survey responses from 1,082 registered Texas voters. In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, 47% said they would vote for Abbott, while 36% said they would go with O'Rourke.
The primary election is set for March 1, with early voting slated to begin Monday.
O'Rourke is running against Rich Wakeland, Joy Diaz, Michael Cooper and Inocencio Barrientez for the Democratic nomination, while Abbott is facing off against Paul Belew, Daniel Harrison, Kandy Kaye Horn, Donald Huffines, Rick Perry, Chad Prather and Allen B. West for the Republican slot.