“I can’t take a pledge to support every single Democrat in the country,” the Texas Democrat told Deb Nelson, the chair of the Hanover/Lyme Town Democrats, during a house party in Lebanon, New Hampshire. “I need to know about them first, right? Would you want me to make a blanket commitment about people I know nothing about, who I’ve never met?”

Nelson challenged O’Rourke on his refusal to endorse Texas Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, who ran against incumbent Republican Congressman Will Hurd, a Texas Republican, in the 2018 midterm elections. Hurd went on to narrowly survive the blue wave that swept through the House of Representatives by a margin of fewer than 1,000 votes.

“Will Hurd, Gina Ortiz Jones’ opponent, the incumbent member of Congress and a good friend of mine, was someone who, in my day job as a member of Congress representing El Paso, I was able to work with,” O’Rourke told voters.