Beto O'Rourke, the former congressman and failed Senate candidate who decided to abandon a promising career as a blogger to run for president, might be regretting that decision. Not only is he struggling to "organize a viable campaign," according to THE POLITICO, O'Rourke is also struggling to impress 8th graders with his stump speech.
It's been a rough couple of months since Beto announced his campaign, and was lauded as a formidable candidate to win the nomination. He's been overtaken in the polls by South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, whose appeal is similar to O'Rourke's, but has the added benefit, in the identity-obsessed realm of Democratic politics, of being openly gay. As former Congressman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) recently observed: Beto "may be regretting that he's straight."
The latest bit of bad news for Beto comes in the form of a Monmouth poll of New Hampshire primary voters. He's tied for sixth place, along with Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), winning the support of just 2 percent of poll respondents, which is getting dangerously close to "statistically insignificant" territory. It's also not much better than truly insignificant candidates such as Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio), former Gov. John Hickenlooper (D., Colo.), and random Silicon Valley bro Andrew Yang, who are all polling at 1 percent.
O'Rourke, who at one point had been polling as high as third place in national polls, and occasionally cracking double digits, has also recently been surpassed by Sens. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), both in New Hampshire and in national surveys. The Monmouth poll showed Warren in fourth place at 8 percent, ahead of Harris (6 percent), but slightly trailing Buttigieg (9 percent). Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to dominate the field, pulling down 36 percent in the New Hampshire poll, comfortably ahead of runner-up Bernie Sanders, who sits at 18 percent.
New Monmouth NH poll:
- Joe Biden 36%
- Bernie Sanders 18%
- Pete Buttigieg 9%
- Elizabeth Warren 8%
- Kamala Harris 6%
- Cory Booker 2%
- Amy Klobuchar 2%
- Beto O’Rourke 2%
- John Hickenlooper 1%
- Tim Ryan 1%
- Andrew Yang 1%Rest under 1%
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 9, 2019