High-profile Texas Democrat O'Rourke entering academia after three failed political campaigns

After a trio of failed but headline-grabbing political campaigns, Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke has accepted an academic fellowship at the University of Chicago, the Express-News reports .

It’s unclear whether the former El Paso congressman will return to politics. But, for the time being, he'll be teaching at the university as a Pritzker fellow. In that role, he'll lead seminars using Texas as a case study to explore the present and future state of democracy in the U.S., according to the daily.

O'Rourke was catapulted into the national spotlight with a near-miss 2018 campaign to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. However, his political brand was tarnished by a lackluster run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and this year he lost a race to unseat Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the Republican incumbent.

O’Rourke’s new gig in Illinois won’t be his first time lecturing to college students, though. He previously taught a politics class at Texas State University and a graduate-level class on democracy at UT Austin in 2021, according to the Express-News.

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