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Beto O'Rourke says he has 'made a decision' on a presidential run

Beto O'Rourke Says He Has 'Made a Decision' on a Presidential Run
Beto O'Rourke Says He Has 'Made a Decision' on a Presidential Run

Beto O’Rourke, who has turned his consideration of a presidential campaign into an online version of reality television, inviting Americans to follow along through journal dispatches as he travels the country in search of personal clarity, said Wednesday that he had made his decision.

What is it? He’ll tell you soon.

When is soon? Unclear.

“Amy and I have made a decision about how we can best serve our country,” O’Rourke, the former congressman from Texas, said in the briefest of statements, referring to his wife, Amy Sanders. “We are excited to share it with everyone soon.”

O’Rourke, who served in the House from 2013 through the beginning of 2019, made a national name for himself last year when he gave Sen. Ted Cruz a surprisingly strong challenge in a reliably conservative state. Cruz was re-elected by less than 3 percentage points. Six years earlier, he had won by 16 points.

In his Senate campaign, O’Rourke fired up Texas Democrats with a broadly liberal message and a charismatic stage presence, while also pulling in donations from across the country.

Some political observers have been urging him to try to replicate that campaign in 2020 against Texas’ other Republican senator, John Cornyn, rather than enter one of the most crowded Democratic primary fields in history.

The announcement-of-a-coming-announcement was first reported by The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday afternoon. The paper, citing anonymous sources “close to the former El Paso congressman,” also reported that O’Rourke had decided not to challenge Cornyn, who is up for re-election next year. Such a decision would suggest that O’Rourke was leaning toward a run for the presidency.

O’Rourke’s spokesman, Chris Evans, would not comment on whether the former congressman had decided to forgo a 2020 Senate run.

But since almost the moment he conceded in November, the larger speculation has been whether he will try to translate his appeal in Texas, where he presented himself as a unifier, to a national primary in which Democratic voters have shown an appetite for more strongly progressive policies.

He placed well in some early polls, landing as high as third in mid-January behind former Vice President Joe Biden (who has not decided whether he will run) and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (who entered the race last week). In more recent polls, Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have surpassed him.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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