Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke are criss-crossing Texas as early voting continues. Through Tuesday, the Texas Secretary of State said 1,057,634 people had voted representing 5.98% of all registered voters.
Abbott held a "Get out the Vote" rally Wednesday morning in Addison.
"If you have not yet voted, go vote," he told the crowd. "If we just have everybody in this room make sure, if they haven't voted, go vote today, that will run up the numbers. But if you think you have done your job for democracy at that point in time, you're completely wrong. What's required in a democracy, it's a participation sport."
Abbott urged those in attendance to text friends and urge them to vote.
During the rally, Abbott said Texas now has a $27 billion budget surplus. He said he would use half that money to reduce property taxes.
"Texas is the most prosperous state in the country, and you deserve to benefit from that prosperity with lower property taxes," Abbott said, saying Beto O'Rourke voted three times to increase property taxes as an El Paso city councilman.
O'Rourke has said Abbott has "mismanaged the state budget and pushed the majority of Texas’ school finance burden onto local taxpayers."
"Abbott refuses to close the tax loopholes that allow wealthy corporations to manipulate the appraisal process and shift billions upon billions of dollars of their tax burden onto the rest of us. As governor, I will guarantee tax fairness and ensure wealthy corporations pay what they truly owe to reduce property taxes for families and small businesses," O'Rourke writes on his website.
Abbott says Texas has also generated more jobs than any other state over the past ten years.
"What we must do is show voters the contrast between the conservative policies that have made Texas number one versus the radical leftist agenda Beto O'Rourke is trying to impose on you and your families," he says.
Abbott also talked about border security, saying DPS has worked to stop human and drug trafficking. He says police in Texas have now seized enough fentanyl to kill every person in America; Abbott has previously signed an executive order designating cartels terrorist organizations.
"We have Beto siding up with Joe Biden because Beto said, not too long ago, 'There's no problem on the border,'" Abbott said during the rally. "He has his head in the sand about this."
O'Rourke says Abbott is using taxpayer money to "take 10,000 members of the Texas National Guard away from their families, careers, and communities to serve as the backdrop for his photo ops at the border, even though they have zero authority to arrest or detain migrants"
O'Rourke says he would use surveillance towers, cameras and drones to monitor activity between ports of entry. He says he would also support a guest worker program.
Abbott also had campaign events scheduled Wednesday in Denison and Tyler. O'Rourke was scheduled to campaign in Waco, Killeen and Round Rock.
Early voting continues through Friday, November 4. Election day is Tuesday, November 8.
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