Beto O'Rourke ate 'dirt said to have regenerative powers' after losing Senate race to Ted Cruz
After an embarrassing loss to Ted Cruz in the Senate race in November, 2018, Beto O'Rourke did not eat crow or a humble pie. Instead, he chose to eat dirt.
Beto told the story of his earthy snack to The Washington Post in an extensive 3,000-word profile published Tuesday while speaking about his failed bid to dethrone Sen. Cruz, R-Texas despite raising a staggering $80 million, Fox News reports.
“In January, Beto hit the road, much as his father had done before him, and drew energy from the people he met, and — on one stop in New Mexico he didn’t write about in his blog — by eating New Mexican dirt said to have regenerative powers,” the profile reads. “He brought some home for the family to eat, too.”
The story came to the fore just days after O’Rourke resonated with other Democrats supporting a series of controversial ideas including permanently abolishing the Electoral College.
“I think there’s a lot to that. Because you had an election in 2016 where the loser got 3 million more votes than the victor,” O’Rourke said in a video posted online on Tuesday. “It puts some states out of play altogether, they don’t feel like their votes really count. If we really want everyone to vote, to give them every reason to vote, we have to make sure their votes count and go to the candidate of their choosing. So I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pushed a similar proposal just a day before O'Rourke's comments. Addressing an audience at the historically African-American Jackson State University in Mississippi, Warren said, "Every vote matters and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College."
Nonetheless, O'Rourke is already rolling in campaign cash after announcing his entry into the 2020 presidential race last week. The presidential-hopeful marked a new record for the 2020 Democratic primary race after reportedly raising a monumental $6.1 million online in the first 24 hours after his announcement.
“In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president — a campaign by all of us for all of us that answers not to the PACs, corporations and special interests but to the people,” O’Rourke said in a statement.
Before O'Rourke, it was Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who held the previous record this year after his campaign posted a $5.9 million haul in the first 24 hours after his 2020 launch.