Beto has earned our respect with a high-energy, upbeat, people-powered campaign. He's out-hustling and out-fundraising Ted Cruz and inspiring Texas Democrats up and down the ballot, all without taking a dime from corporate PACs -- especially fossil fuel corporate PACs.
At Climate Hawks Vote, we pride ourselves on winning most of our races, because you donāt build political power for the climate movement by losing hopeless, longshot races. Early on, most pundits didnāt give Beto a chance. Heās running against Ted Cruz?!? In deep-red Texas?!? But Beto has earned respect with a high-energy, upbeat, people-powered campaign, the latest polls show a very competitive race, and clearly Ted Cruz himself sounds nervous when he says that āDemocrats will crawl over broken glass to vote this November.ā We wouldnāt issue this endorsement if we didnāt think Beto has a real chance to beat Ted Cruz.
And weāre picky about who we endorse — we donāt endorse unless weāre satisfied that the candidate is a climate hawk. (We wonāt pretend to you that any pro-coal opponent of the Clean Power Plan deserves support from the climate hawk community.)
Beto has been an outspoken advocate for wind and solar — two abundant resources in Texas. And, consistent with his vow not to take corporate PAC money, heās signed the pledge not to take fossil fuel PAC money.Ā
One last point — Ted Cruz is the dictionary definition of a fossil fueled politician. In the Senate, he writes bills called the āAmerican Energy Renaissance Actā (S. 791, 115th Congress; S. 2170, 114th Congress) that really should be called āDrill Baby Drill Act.ā Heās trying to undermine the Endangered Species Act for the benefit of his donors (S. 2778, 115th Congress). And what donors they are — $2.7 million from the oil and gas industry over a five-year career. Cruz is simply a mouthpiece for the oil industry, pushing their agenda in the Senate.
Let’s show that people power can beat oil money.
