Beto O'Rourke has found an unlikely group of supporters for his Senate bid in white evangelical women — many of whom formerly voted Republican.
In interviews with the New York Times, evangelical O'Rourke supporters explained why they abandoned the Republican Party to vote for Ted Cruz's challenger.
"I care as much about babies at the border as I do about babies in the womb," Tess Clarke, a 30-something Dallas resident, churchgoer and O'Rourke supporter told the newspaper.
Clarke said that she was "mortified" by her past voting for GOP candidates based solely on the party's opposition to abortion.
"We’ve been asleep," the woman said. "Now, we’ve woke up."
Clarke runs a business selling candles poured by refugee women in Dallas, the report noted, adding that she began to cry while recalling visiting a female migrant detained at the border who was separated from her child.
Recently, an older white Christian man told her she couldn't both be Christian and vote for O'Rourke — a statement that "outraged" Clarke, the Times reported.
“I keep going back to who Jesus was when he walked on earth,” she noted. “This is about proximity to people in pain.”
Read the entire profile on white evangelical O'Rourke voters via the Times.
