O'Rourke on positive COVID-19 test: 'I have mild symptoms and will be following public health guidelines'

Politics
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Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, speaks at a campaign event in Livingston. | Twitter/BetoORourke

Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke has tested positive for COVID-19 as of Monday (April 25), according to a report from Austin ABC affiliate KVUE. 

The 49-year-old O'Rourke said on Twitter that he is fully vaccinated and boosted, adding that he regularly undergoes testing while he travels the Lone Star State for town hall meetings. 

"I tested negative yesterday morning before testing positive today," the former U.S. representative from West Texas tweeted. "I have mild symptoms and will be following public health guidelines."

According to KVUE, O'Rourke recently held a property tax address in Dallas on April 20.

He and Jay Kleberg, a Democrat running for Texas Land Commissioner, had been slated to hold a press conference in the Houston area on Monday.

The station reported that O'Rourke also visited Livingston and New Braunfels this past week.

O'Rourke seeks to unseat incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and become the first Democrat to reside in the Governor's Mansion since the late Ann Richards in the early 1990s.

The governor contracted COVID-19 last summer.

Abbott and O'Rourke are on the November ballot by virtue of their victories in their respective primaries last month, the Austin Journal reported.  

Abbott accumulated more than 60% of the Republican vote to further his quest for a third consecutive term while O'Rourke, who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2018 and the Democratic nod for the presidency two years later, secured 90% of his party's vote to become the third challenger to Abbott, per the publication.