EL PASO — Beto O’Rourke is hoping his campaign strategy will help him defy the odds and win a Senate race experts said shouldn’t even be close.

  • Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994
  • O’Rourke’s strategy is focused mainly on increased turnout
  • Cruz favored to win in staunchly a conservative state

In the last few weeks, O’Rourke, a congressman from El Paso, has attempted to boost the amount of Texas Democrats turning out to vote while also encouraging traditional non-voters to head to the polls in the 2018 midterms.

Field organizers opened pop-up offices to widen the O’Rourke team’s get-out-the-vote efforts. Hundreds of makeshift campaign hubs appeared all over the state, with supporters offering their homes, kitchens, living rooms, offices, garages, restaurant patios, and bars for volunteer sites.

Paid staffers oversee the pop-ups and run training sessions, provide campaign literature, and talk strategy. All the spaces are run strictly by volunteers. Most of them are homeowners.

“We won’t quit, rain or shine,” Laura Cahill, a pop-up office manager said.

At 73 years old, she is fighting fibromyalgia but is determined to step-up voter turnout to boost support for O’Rourke. A Republican-defector, like the people O’Rourke aimed to attract, Cahill says she sees a new coalition emerging. She doesn’t buy the argument made by his opponent, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, that he’s too liberal for Texas.

“We’re a movement,” she said. “We hear stories over and over again about the change they want in Texas."

Cahill and her husband expect to make 500 or more phones calls in the final hours leading up to Election Day.

“It’s been work, but it’s been a lot of fun too,” John Cahill said. “We remind them if they haven't voted yet they have to go to their precinct to vote tomorrow."

He mentions how it’s neighborhood canvassing and one-on-one interactions that also motivates voters.

Kelly Rocha said this type of political organizing is paying off in her community.

“I translate my whole blurb in Spanish and tell them ‘you need to vote, it’s very important,’” she said.

Tuesday will render the verdict on O’Rourke’s campaign: Was he an overhyped flash in the pan or a political phenomenon who delivers the year’s biggest political upset?

O’Rourke remains behind Cruz in the polls but his supporters believe he has a chance based on the enthusiasm they say he has generated across the state.

“Oh, every fiber of my body believes in him,” Cahill said.