40 Fun Facts About Beto O'Rourke

What is Beto O'Rourke's legal first name, shared with the grandfather his childhood nickname set him apart from?

Robert Francis O'Rourke was called Beto from infancy, so the family could tell him apart from his namesake grandfather. He defended the nickname in 2018 against charges of cultural appropriation.

Which hacker group, known for tools that broke into Windows PCs, had a teenage Beto O'Rourke as a member?

Cult of the Dead Cow took its name from a shut-down Lubbock slaughterhouse and later released Back Orifice, a tool built to expose weak security in Windows.

Which instrument did Beto O'Rourke play in Foss, the punk band he formed with friends from El Paso?

Bass guitar was his pick when he and two El Paso friends taught themselves to play. He later said his bandmates' musical careers confirmed their talent and his lack of it.

Which Republican kept his Senate seat by fewer than three points against Beto O'Rourke in Texas in 2018?

Ted Cruz won 50.9% to 48.3%, yet O'Rourke's four million ballots were at the time the most ever cast for a Democrat in Texas.

Which Mexican revolutionary reportedly met a US general in 1915 at the house Beto O'Rourke later made his home?

Pancho Villa is said to have met General Hugh Scott there; the mission-style house in the Sunset Heights neighborhood was designed by the architect Henry Trost.

In which fast-food chain's parking lot did Beto O'Rourke livestream himself skateboarding during his 2018 Senate bid?

Whataburger, the Texas burger chain, was one stop in a campaign he livestreamed daily, down to washing clothes at a laundromat.

Which country music legend debuted a new election song at a 2018 Austin rally for Beto O'Rourke?

Willie Nelson closed the free Austin concert with Vote 'Em Out, and his endorsement drew criticism from the conservative part of his fan base.

On which everyday device was the first ad of Beto O'Rourke's 2018 Senate campaign filmed?

An iPhone shot the first ad for a campaign that hired no professional pollsters or consultants and relied on volunteers new to politics.

Beto O'Rourke campaigned in all 254 of which Texas divisions during his 2018 Senate run?

Counties number 254 in Texas, and O'Rourke later argued in a presidential debate that going to every one of them could turn the state into a battleground.

What is Beto O'Rourke wearing on the cover of The El Paso Pussycats, a record by his band Foss?

A floral dress borrowed from his girlfriend appears on the sleeve. The friends had swapped clothes for fun, and Texas Republicans later tweeted the image to mock him.

Which incumbent Republican governor defeated Beto O'Rourke by about eleven points in the 2022 Texas election?

Greg Abbott won a third term with 54.8% to O'Rourke's 43.9%, the Democrat's third straight losing race after bids for the Senate and the presidency.

At which Ivy League university did Beto O'Rourke co-captain the heavyweight rowing crew in his junior year?

Columbia is also where he joined his first band, Swipe, which played bars and clubs around New York.

Which Clash album, heard in eighth grade, did Beto O'Rourke later credit with introducing him to punk?

London Calling was a revelation, he said, and by the age of 14 or 15 he was going to local punk shows in El Paso.

Which candidate did Beto O'Rourke endorse at a Dallas rally the night before Super Tuesday in March 2020?

Joe Biden gained three former rivals that day, as Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg also backed him on the eve of Super Tuesday.

Into which language did Beto O'Rourke switch mid-answer at the first Democratic presidential debate in Miami in 2019?

Spanish came easily to the bilingual El Paso native, who used it while replying to a question about tax rates.

What kind of music did Foss, Beto O'Rourke's punk band, claim to play to get onto an El Paso public-access show?

Christian rock was the cover story that got the band onto an evangelical program in 1994, where a chaotic set left the host admitting he had been fooled.

The name of Foss, the band Beto O'Rourke played in during the early 1990s, is the Icelandic word for what?

Waterfall is what foss means in Icelandic, and the four-piece carried the name on two summer tours of the United States and Canada.

Which Texas Republican shared a live-streamed 1,600-mile drive to Washington with Beto O'Rourke in March 2017?

Will Hurd and O'Rourke rented a car in San Antonio when snow grounded their flights before a House roll call, and they went on to work on legislation together.

Which drug's prohibition did Beto O'Rourke argue against in Dealing Death and Drugs, the 2011 book he co-wrote?

Marijuana should be legal, the book argues, because ending the ban would reduce drug violence and drain money from Mexican cartels.

Dressed as which figure did Pat O'Rourke, father of Beto O'Rourke, campaign in El Paso in 1978?

A leprechaun costume was how he embraced his Irish American roots on Saint Patrick's Day, suspecting they would be used against him in a mostly Mexican American electorate.

Which future singer of At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta played drums in Foss alongside Beto O'Rourke?

Cedric Bixler-Zavala has called O'Rourke an older-brother figure and mentor, saying the way he makes art was learned from his bandmate.

Under which pseudonym, borrowed from a 1974 Hawkwind song, did a teenage Beto O'Rourke write for a hacker group?

Psychedelic Warlord was the byline on poems and other texts he posted as a teenager, including short stories he later said he regretted.

In which state did Beto O'Rourke board at Woodberry Forest, an all-male school, after two years at El Paso High?

Virginia is where he and a circle of friends founded an environmental group at the school, the Terra Interest Society.

Which subject did Beto O'Rourke study for the bachelor's degree he earned in New York in 1995?

English literature suited a graduate who went on to work as a proofreader at the H. W. Wilson Company, writing short stories and songs in his free time.

Which cause is the subject of We've Got to Try, the book Beto O'Rourke published in 2022?

Voting rights, the subtitle argues, are the fight that makes everything else possible. It was his second book, after a 2011 one on the drug trade.

Which class of firearm did Beto O'Rourke propose a mandatory government buyback for after the 2019 El Paso shooting?

Assault weapons were the target of a pledge he repeated on a presidential debate stage weeks later, a clip one Democratic senator warned would be replayed at gun-rights rallies for years.

Which 1980s presidential candidate held a press conference in the den of Beto O'Rourke's boyhood home in El Paso?

Jesse Jackson came because O'Rourke's father, then a local officeholder, helped lead his campaigns in Texas.

After which 2021 Texas emergency did Beto O'Rourke organize volunteers to make wellness calls to senior citizens?

A winter storm had cut power across Texas that February, and the blackout became a theme of the run for governor he announced later that year.

Which network premiered Running with Beto, the 2019 documentary about Beto O'Rourke's Senate campaign?

HBO aired the film in May 2019, weeks after it won the Audience Award at the South by Southwest festival.

What did Beto O'Rourke move for a living in New York after college, when he also worked as a live-in caretaker?

Artworks were his cargo as an art mover, one of the odd jobs he held before returning to El Paso in 1998.

Which eight-term El Paso congressman did Beto O'Rourke unseat in the 2012 Democratic primary, just avoiding a runoff?

Silvestre Reyes had endorsements from Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, but O'Rourke knocked on a reported 16,000 doors and took 50.5 percent of the primary.

Which title did the El Paso City Council hand Beto O'Rourke unanimously at his first meeting in June 2005?

Mayor pro tem is the stand-in who presides when the city's top official is away. He gave the post up after a year, hoping it would pass to a new member annually.

Which congressional group lost its El Paso member when Beto O'Rourke took office in 2013, as its bylaws excluded him?

Hispanic Caucus rules require a heritage the Irish American O'Rourke lacks, though it was shared by about 80 percent of his district. He said he respected the bylaws.

Which Army post headquartered in El Paso fell under the House Armed Services Committee, on which Beto O'Rourke sat?

Fort Bliss gave his district a large military community, and he held a veterans' town hall every month of his time in Congress.

In which Texas border town did Beto O'Rourke lead a June 2018 march against a tent city for migrant children?

Tornillo lies just miles from the Rio Grande, and O'Rourke, who was raised Catholic, described leading the march as a religious experience.

What kind of company was Stanton Street, which Beto O'Rourke co-founded after returning to El Paso?

Internet services and software were its trade, and for a few years it also published an online newspaper modeled on alternative weeklies.

Which Democrat did Beto O'Rourke back against Nancy Pelosi in a 2016 challenge for the party's House leadership?

Tim Ryan of Ohio lost the challenge, but O'Rourke backed him on principle: he believed in term limits and had set one for his own House career.

Who was the last Democrat elected governor of Texas before Beto O'Rourke sought the office in 2022?

Ann Richards won narrowly in 1990 and lost her re-election bid to George W. Bush four years later.

Killings in which Mexican city prompted Beto O'Rourke's 2009 council resolution urging a rethink of the war on drugs?

Ciudad Juárez lies just across the border from El Paso. The resolution won unanimous support from his council colleagues but was vetoed.

Who succeeded Beto O'Rourke as El Paso's representative in Congress after he gave up the seat in 2018?

Veronica Escobar had headed communications for his first congressional primary campaign, then won the seat herself when he ran for the Senate.