The untested but charismatic Democratic phenom joins the crowded race to take on Donald Trump.
Beto O’Rourke said Thursday he will run for president, asking voters to choose a young and charismatic — but largely untested — Democrat as the best option to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.
O’Rourke is also expected to travel to Cedar Rapids to record the popular Political Party Live podcast, and to Waterloo for an event on Saturday with Eric Giddens, a Democratic state Senate candidate. He will attend a house party that night with John Murphy, the Dubuque County recorder. By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
O’Rourke, meanwhile, had been holding back. The 46-year-old and his wife, Amy, both expressed reservations about the toll a presidential campaign could take on their three children, after a grueling, two-year campaign to unseat Cruz. And O’Rourke has done relatively little to prepare for the organizational rigors of a campaign. In recent weeks, O’Rourke slipped slightly in public opinion measures as he vacillated on a run.
“Now the real work begins,” Nate Lerner, co-founder of one of the groups, Draft Beto, said in a prepared statement. “We're shifting the grassroots, financial, and political resources we’ve built over to Beto’s campaign and focusing entirely on electing Beto in 2020.” O’Rourke’s supporters anticipate that the timing of O’Rourke’s announcement, while later than other major Democratic contenders, could be fortuitous for a border-state Democrat, with the recent government shutdown focusing attention of immigration and Trump’s proposed border wall.
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