Book Review: We’ve Got to Try—and Keep Trying

I was born and raised in Texas, which means voting has always felt like a mix of responsibility, ritual, and—if I’m being honest—frustration. I’ve stood in long lines at polling places where half the machines didn’t work, watched friends walk away because they didn’t have the “right” ID, and listened to relatives rant about voter fraud like it was gospel. So when I picked up We’ve Got to Try by Beto O’Rourke, I expected a political memoir laced with soaring rhetoric. But what I got instead was something much more powerful: a deeply human, historically grounded, and surprisingly urgent reminder that the fight for voting rights in Texas has always been messy, vital, and unfinished.

This isn’t a book that stays safe in the realm of platitudes. It digs in. We’ve Got to Try is structured around the long arc of voter suppression and resistance in Texas, starting with the story of Lawrence Aaron Nixon, a Black doctor from El Paso who dared to vote in the early 1900s and became the central figure in a Supreme Court battle against the Texas white primary system. O’Rourke brings Nixon’s story to life with care and clarity, and as someone who grew up never hearing that name in school, I felt a mix of anger and gratitude as I read. How had I missed this chapter of Texas history? And how many more names like Nixon’s had been buried under the weight of state-sanctioned silence?

O’Rourke threads these early battles into his own experience—first as a city councilman in El Paso, then as a congressman, then as a Senate and presidential candidate. I was skeptical going in, worried the book might lean too hard into self-promotion. But to his credit, O’Rourke keeps the focus mostly off himself. When his own stories do come up, they’re offered in service of the larger theme: that voting is both the most essential and most embattled right in a democracy. He recounts the 2018 Senate race not as a personal triumph, but as a wake-up call—a moment when millions of Texans turned out in defiance of decades-long attempts to keep them away from the ballot box.

What really struck me, though, was how personal this book felt. O’Rourke doesn’t write like a detached observer. He writes like someone who’s angry, hopeful, and totally immersed in the place he calls home. He talks about visiting communities in East Texas where Black voters are still fighting for basic access to polling places. He lifts up the voices of organizers who are working day and night to register voters in colonias along the border. He exposes the racist architecture of modern-day voter ID laws and redistricting maps not with cynicism, but with the conviction that knowledge itself is a tool of resistance.

For someone like me, who spent nearly three decades steeped in the contradictions of Texas politics, We’ve Got to Trydidn’t just feel informative—it felt like a call to memory. It reminded me of the times I voted in schools that were crumbling around me, where the teachers volunteered after hours to help run the precinct. It reminded me of the first time I watched someone cry in a voting booth because they finally felt seen. And it reminded me of the crushing feeling in 2013 when the Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which had required Texas to get federal approval before changing voting laws. That ruling came down while I still lived in the state. Within hours, Texas officials moved to enforce one of the most restrictive ID laws in the country. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.

O’Rourke does an admirable job explaining how that happened—and why it mattered—without ever sounding academic. His writing is accessible, occasionally fiery, but always tethered to a deep respect for the truth. He doesn’t pretend this fight is new. He just insists that it’s ours.

That insistence runs through every chapter like a pulse. From the heartbreaking accounts of civil rights leaders beaten for demanding the vote to the modern-day examples of students and elderly voters turned away at the polls, the message is consistent: Texas has been a battleground for voting rights since its founding. And we are nowhere near done.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I found myself wishing for a little more structure in the storytelling. The book sometimes drifts between timelines and topics in a way that can feel loosely stitched. But maybe that’s appropriate. After all, the story of voting rights in Texas isn’t linear. It’s a patchwork of progress and backlash, courage and sabotage.

If you’ve never lived in Texas, this book will give you a potent education in the state’s complex, often infuriating history of voter suppression. If you’re from Texas, it might feel like sitting down with a friend who knows your hometown’s streets and scars and is telling you stories you never heard but always should have. Either way, it’s worth reading.

What moved me most, though, was the tone of hope that runs through the pain. O’Rourke doesn’t sugarcoat the obstacles. But he believes deeply that things can get better—and that we have a role in making them better. It’s that belief, anchored in history and community and relentless effort, that makes We’ve Got to Try more than just a political book. It’s a love letter to Texas, flaws and all. And it’s a reminder that democracy only works if we do.