Senator Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke Meet for 2nd Live Debate

The tense race between Senator Ted Cruz and his opponent, Beto O’Rourke, heats up even more Tuesday night as the two meet for their second political debate in San Antonio.

The Texas Tribune reports that the hour-long podium debate may be the last debate between the two men. They were meant to debate for the 2^nd time on September 21^st in Dallas, but the debate was indefinitely postponed due to the controversial Supreme Court Kavanaugh hearings. With less than a week away before early voting begins, it isn’t likely the debate will be rescheduled.

Tuesday night, the debate will begin at 8 p.m. and broadcast live in 11 markets across the state. Lubbock residents can watch the debate by live stream on the Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube page of the CBS affiliate in San Antonio, KENS5 News. You can also catch the debate at TexasTribune.com.

The race between incumbent Senator Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, a democrat Congressman from El Paso, has many Texas republicans nervous, especially with O’Rourke largely out-raising the Cruz campaign in terms of campaign funds. From January 2017 to July of 2018, the O’Rourke campaign reported more than $23.7 million dollars in raised money. In contrast, the Cruz campaign raised only $14.1 million during the same time period.

O’Rourke has been publicly proud of the claim that most of the donations to his campaign are relatively small, individual donations from fired-up Texan democrats. A report by Ryan Murphy and Alex Samuels of the Texas Tribune shows that O’Rourke could be correct in that claim, but it’s hard to know for sure.

As of July 2018, O’Rourke had raised $9.4 million in Texas donations as compared to Cruz’s $5.2 million, but O’Rourke also has over $9.7 million in unreported donations that could be donations under $200, which the campaign isn’t required to report, or they could be donations from other sources out-of-state. For comparison, the Cruz campaign has only $4.3 million in unreported donations. Both Cruz and O’Rourke are dead even in out-of-state donations, at $4.6 million.

In any case, Beto’s campaign for Senate has continued to out-raise the Cruz campaign, even in the recent third quarter. On Friday it was revealed that O’Rourke raised more than $38 million in the third quarter compared to Cruz’s $12 million. Despite the impressive donations, O’Rourke continues to under-perform in recent polls. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows Cruz with a 10 point lead over O’Rourke, with 54% of Texans polled favoring Cruz over 45% who don’t favor him.