Struggling Presidential Candidate Draws Crowd of About 20 in Tulsa

A fledgling presidential candidate held a tiny campaign event in a cramped room with a small crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma Sunday.

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke preached about abortion access and the still-debunked “gender pay gap” to a group of about 20 people. He then posted a video from the event on Twitter, making the devastating crowd size public.

“Great being in Tulsa tonight for an important conversation about fighting dangerous efforts to roll back reproductive health care, working to ensure we achieve equal pay, and mobilizing to finally ratify the Equal Rights Amendment,” the caption said.

Once a rising star in the Democratic Party, O’Rourke made a run for U.S. Senate in Texas, ultimately losing to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) despite spending $80 million on his campaign.

He spent the next few months haphazardly traveling the country while deciding whether to toss his hat in the 2020 presidential ring. Since deciding to run, his results have been underwhelming.

Last month, O’Rourke drew a crowd of only 35 at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas, a school with nearly 30,000 students. Around that time, his senior staff began to walk away from his campaign.

Big League Politics reported:

As the Beto O’Rourke campaign struggles to gain momentum in the crowded Democratic presidential primary, two top campaign staffers have left the operation.

Becky Bond, one of O’Rourke’s top advisors from the 2018 Texas Senate campaign that put the El Paso Democrat on the map, has departed from her role within the presidential campaign. Her deputy, Zach Malitz, also departed. The two Democratic campaign professionals had previously worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign.

O’Rourke is increasingly struggling to stand out in a crowded primary, and facing accusations of lacking bona fide policy proposals. Many within O’Rourke’s lane of the Democratic Party are instead following South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who appears to be utilizing much of the same campaign tactics Beto did in 2018 in a more effective manner.

Bond and Malitz told BuzzFeed that they had departed the O’Rourke campaign in order to “move on to other challenges.

The latest national primary polls show former vice president Joe Biden well ahead of the rest of the primary field. O’Rourke is polling at around four percent.


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