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Beto O'Rourke Enters the 2020 Presidential Campaign

17 August 2024 at 17:27
Beto O’Rourke, the 46-year-old former Texas congressman whose near-miss Senate run last year propelled him to Democratic stardom, announced his candidacy for president Thursday, betting that voters will prize his message of national unity and generational change in a 2020 primary teeming with committed progressives.

His decision jolts an early election season already stuffed with contenders, adding to the mix a relentless campaigner with a small-dollar fundraising army, the performative instincts of a former punk rocker and a pro-immigrant vision to counteract President Donald Trump’s.

Yet O’Rourke also comes to the 2020 race with few notable legislative accomplishments after three terms in the House representing El Paso. And in a primary so far defined by big-ticket policy ideas, like the economic agendas of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, O’Rourke enters without a signature proposal that might serve as the ideological anchor of his bid.

“This moment of peril produces perhaps the greatest moment of promise for this country and for everyone inside it,” O’Rourke said in a video announcing his candidacy.

Unlike many of his 14 Democratic rivals for the nomination, O’Rourke has spent little time until recently even considering a White House run, let alone building an operation that would sustain one. Some voters and activists have also wondered aloud if a white male is the best fit for this Democratic moment, particularly after midterm successes powered often by female and nonwhite candidates.

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With O’Rourke’s entry, the primary field appears close to settled more than 10 months before the Iowa caucuses; former Vice President Joe Biden, the only holdout among the expected major candidates, seems poised to join the race next month.

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Early polls have shown Biden and Sanders on top. O’Rourke, three decades their junior, hopes to supply an unsubtle contrast, particularly given Sanders’ success with the kinds of young voters who flocked to O’Rourke in Texas.

Advisers to O’Rourke’s competitors have long watched his plans with concern, recognizing that the kind of face-to-face politicking that fueled his campaign to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas should suit him well in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters crave personal interaction with candidates.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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