Beto using the right tactic.

[Belacqua]

ensuring his political survival while holding office in TEXAS?

I can't say what his personal motives were. 

The district he represented, though, is solidly Democrat. In the last 116 years, it has been represented by a Republican for only 2 years. 

FiveThirtyEight currently gives it a less than 1 in 100 chance of going Republican.

So if he had ambitions of state-wide office, maybe he had to veer to the right -- more to the right than the constituents he was representing. But if his job was to represent the people who voted for him, his votes were surprising. He didn't have to compromise any principles to represent Democrats.

We can hope that with the popularity of Bernie, AOC, and other politicians who have a genuinely left-wing record, Beto might stop voting Republican. But I don't know why we'd choose somebody who isn't proven. Bernie has been on the right side of nearly everything for decades. There is video of him warning about climate change from 1987. 

So gambling on a pretty face with unknown allegiances is risky. One allegiance we have little data on, but is worth watching: his father-in-law, who is vastly wealthy. Bloomberg estimated his portfolio at 20 billion. Forbes says it's probably less than a billion now, poor guy. Either way, this is not somebody who worries about money. 

So it's still early, and maybe he'll prove himself. But comparing him to the obviously better people I don't even see why he's running.