A Texas Democrat once deemed a rising future star of the party, former Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, has already suffered a pair of embarrassing electoral losses in recent years, first in 2018 to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and then in the 2020 Democratic primary elections season.

It looks like O’Rourke is now cruising for a third crushing defeat, as recent polling shows him losing badly in his bid to unseat Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), The Hill reported.

The poll suggested that were the Texas gubernatorial election to be held today between Abbott and O’Rourke, the incumbent governor would emerge victorious over his Democratic challenger by a 10-point margin, 47 – 37 percent.

Making that news even worse for O’Rourke was the fact that, according to the pollsters, Abbott had roughly twice as much support among independent Texan voters as his likely opponent did, 42-21 percent — a veritable death blow to the Democratic campaign in a state still predominately populated with Republicans.

Abbott would defeat O’Rourke

The poll reported on by The Hill was conducted by the Texas Politics Project in conjunction with the University of Texas and surveyed 1,200 registered voters between Jan. 28 – Feb. 7, with a margin of error of 2.8 percent.

Left unmentioned by The Hill, but noted in the poll’s methodology, is the fact that the pollsters actually oversampled Democrats compared to Republicans, 419 – 379, in the majority Republican state.

Despite being skewed toward the left, the pollsters found that Gov. Abbott would defeat former Rep. O’Rourke by a margin of 47 – 37 percent if the election were held imminently, with 6 percent casting a vote for somebody else and 11 percent remaining undecided at this point in time.

More not so good news for O’Rourke

That wasn’t the only bad news for O’Rourke, as the pollsters also measured the favorability ratings for both likely candidates and revealed that Abbott was in positive territory, 43 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable, while O’Rourke was deep underwater at 36 percent favorable compared to 43 percent unfavorable.

Gov. Abbott also had a positive job approval rating, 44 – 42 percent, and received positive plurality support on a variety of major issues facing the state’s voters but one — his handling of the electric grid failure during a severe winter storm in 2021, an issue that The Hill noted that O’Rourke is seeking to exploit in his campaign.

Nor can O’Rourke look to the White House for any sort of worthwhile support for his prospective gubernatorial campaign, as President Joe Biden’s job approval rating among Texans is absolutely dismal at just 36 percent approve and 52 percent disapprove.

Other polls tell same story

O’Rourke and his liberal allies can’t dismiss this particular poll as an inaccurate outlier, either, as its results appear to be right in line with the average poll results compiled together by RealClearPolitics for the Texas governor’s race in 2022.

The RCP average currently gives the incumbent governor a 10.2-point lead over the ex-congressman, 48.5 – 38.3 percent.