Beto O’Rourke Emerges as the Wild

Card of the 2020 Campaign-in-Waiting

After Representative Beto O’Rourke’s star-making turn in his close loss to Senator Ted
Cruz in Texas, he is increasingly serious about running for president in
2020.CreditCreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times

By Matt Flegenheimer and Jonathan Martin

Dec. 9, 2018

WASHINGTON — The 2020 Democratic presidential primary, already expected to be

the party’s most wide open in decades, has been jostled on the eve of many long-plotted
campaign announcements by a political threat that few contenders bothered considering
until recently:

Will a soon-to-be-former congressman, with an unremarkable legislative record and a

Senate campaign loss, upend their best-laid plans?

Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas has emerged as the wild card of the presidential
campaign-in-waiting for a Democratic Party that lacks a clear 2020 front-runner. After a
star-making turn in his close race against Senator Ted Cruz, Mr. O’Rourke is
increasingly serious about a 2020 run — a development that is rousing activists in early-
voting states, leading veterans of former President Barack Obama’s political operation
(and Mr. Obama himself) to offer their counsel and hampering would-be rivals who are
scrambling to lock down influential supporters and strategists as future campaign staff.
Advisers to other prospective Democratic candidates for 2020 acknowledge that Mr.
O’Rourke is worthy of their concern. His record-setting success with small donors
would test the grass-roots strength of progressives like Senators Elizabeth Warren of
Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His sometimes saccharine call to
summon the nation’s better angels would compete with the likely pitch of Senator Cory
Booker of New Jersey.

And his appeal to some former Obama advisers — and, potentially, his electoral
coalition of young people, women and often infrequent voters — could complicate a
possible run for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who would aim to win back
many of his former boss’s constituencies.

Mr. O’Rourke would surely have vulnerabilities in a primary, including an absence of

signature policy feats or a centerpiece issue to date. In his Senate race, he was often
disinclined to go negative, frustrating some Democrats who believe he wasted a chance
to defeat Mr. Cruz, and he struggled at times in some traditional formats like televised
debates. He is, by admission and design, not the political brawler some Democrats
might crave against a president they loathe. And his candidacy would not be history-
making like Mr. Obama’s nor many of his likely peers’ in the field, in an election when
many activists may want a female or nonwhite nominee.

But the fact that Mr. O’Rourke is even considering a run speaks to uncertainty in the
Democratic Party, as broad and simmering opposition to President Trump is colliding
with crosscurrents of gender, race, ideology and age within its ranks.

With the unceremonious exit of the Clintons, Mr. Obama’s minimal appetite for party
politics and the regret in some quarters about the 2016 primary coronation of Hillary
Clinton, there are no obvious kingmakers in the party, nor many early calls for
establishment intervention in the 2020 primary. As its House-flipping midterm formula
made clear, the party now absorbs an array of voters, from ardent socialists to
disaffected Republicans, across generational and ideological lines.

And given that some three dozen Democrats are considering presidential campaigns, the
primary field could end up so crowded that the vote gets diluted — a phenomenon that
helped Mr. Trump edge ahead of the large Republican pack in 2016.

As he and a small team of aides weigh the merits of a campaign, Mr. O’Rourke, 46, has
focused largely on whether he could run the kind of race he did in Texas —
barnstorming towns with a liberal message and a perpetual social media live-stream,
talking up his disdain for pollsters and super PACs and staking his bid on a personal
connection with voters as much as any issue platform.
Even among those planning to back other Democrats, there is broad consensus that Mr.
O’Rourke would enter the race as a top-tier candidate.CreditTodd Heisler/The New
York Times

There are several questions Mr. O’Rourke is considering aloud, a person close to him
said: Could he build a full-scale national campaign without losing the down-home feel
that powered his Senate bid, when fans tracked his 254-county tour of Texas (down to
the four-hour drives and late-night burger runs) on a near-constant video feed? Would a
hope-and-change chorus find an audience in a primary with other Democrats — and
without an easy Republican foil like Mr. Cruz?

Yet Mr. O’Rourke also plainly recognizes two truths about politics in the age of Mr.
Trump: Traditional qualifications to lead the country do not necessarily matter much,
particularly if a candidate can channel the kind of enthusiasm that Mr. O’Rourke earned
in a news media environment that prizes viral moments. And politicians rarely get
shinier over time; his best shot at the White House, if recent history is a guide, may be
this one.

“Democrats fall in love,” said Gene Martin, a local Democratic chairman in New
Hampshire, describing a “pause” in 2020 staffing activity in the state while Mr.
O’Rourke makes up his mind. “He would get a king’s welcome.”

At the same time, Mr. O’Rourke’s flirtation is dividing some liberals who wonder if a
white man with his résumé and biography is the best fit for this moment, just after the
party recaptured the House, in large measure, on the strength of female and nonwhite
candidates.
“What is it with a party that gets excited about a guy who loses but tries to undercut
somebody who wins?” said Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, describing the
opposition among some Democrats to Nancy Pelosi’s continued leadership in the
House, despite her presiding over a midterm wave. “Our party is emotional.”

Other Democrats eyeing 2020 have said little about Mr. O’Rourke, as is customary with
a possible rival in a race that has not begun. But several of their advisers said Mr.
O’Rourke’s popularity with donors and activists was undeniable and could create early
momentum in key states, his prospects buoyed by a Trump-level command of social
media and a talent for making the generically progressive sound inspirational.

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the
country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you
really need to know.

Like Mr. Obama as he entered the 2008 campaign, Mr. O’Rourke can be difficult to
place on an ideological spectrum, allowing supporters to project their own politics onto
a messaging palette of national unity and common ground — and concerning some
activists on the left who worry that voters are valuing the wrong qualities.

“He says a lot of nice things,” said Waleed Shahid, who worked for Mr. Sanders in
2016 and is now communications director for Justice Democrats, a progressive group.
“Then you try to remember anything that stood out in terms of policy ideas, and it’s
kind of flat.”

In public, Mr. O’Rourke, who declined to be interviewed, has said only that he is not
ruling anything out.
Mr. O’Rourke’s Senate campaign was defined as much by high-minded personal
connection as any signature issue.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times

In private, Mr. O’Rourke is doing little to discourage his suitors. When one well-
connected Democrat asked Mr. O’Rourke what to tell operatives who hope to work for
him, the congressman said to have them contact him on his cellphone, according to a
party official directly familiar with the exchange.

In recent weeks, Mr. O’Rourke has spoken with a leading Democratic fund-raiser about
the financial demands of a presidential bid. He met with Mr. Obama shortly after the
midterms, as The Washington Post first reported. Mr. Obama told Mr. O’Rourke he was
impressed with the congressman’s show-up-everywhere Senate run, according to a
person familiar with the conversation. The former president has publicly compared this
approach to his own.

Mr. O’Rourke’s camp has also been in contact with several members of the extended
Obama orbit, and the congressman’s chief of staff and de facto chief strategist, David
Wysong, has reached out to a variety of Democratic consultants to ask about how to
organize a run.

From his Senate race, Mr. O’Rourke has also already built a 50-state list of supporters
that could form the foundation of a sprawling volunteer network.

Jeff Link, a longtime Iowa Democratic strategist, said Mr. O’Rourke’s odometer-
pushing campaign style would be a natural fit in a state where politicians crow about
touching down in all 99 counties.

“If he comes to Des Moines and does a big event in the evening, he should think about
the Knapp Center at Drake as opposed to a party room in a restaurant,” Mr. Link said,
referring to a 7,152-seat college basketball arena.

The chief obstacle to a run, according to the person close to Mr. O’Rourke, is family
considerations, after two years of taxing travel across his home state. He lives in El Paso
with his wife, Amy, and three school-age children.

Mr. O’Rourke, who received broadly positive news coverage as an underdog candidate
in 2018, would also face far deeper scrutiny in a national field, renewing attention on
episodes like a drunk driving arrest in his 20s, during which he attempted to leave the
scene, according to a witness who spoke to the police at the time. (Mr. O’Rourke has
denied trying to flee.)

Perhaps more significant to his chances, the ascendant role of nonwhite voters in the
party, paired with the backlash to Mr. Trump’s weaponizing of race and gender, has
raised doubts among some Democrats that a white male candidate can win the
nomination.
Mr. O’Rourke’s flirtation is dividing some liberals who wonder if a white man with his
résumé and biography is the best fit for this Democratic moment, after the party
recaptured the House on the strength of female and nonwhite candidates.CreditTamir
Kalifa for The New York Times

And the mere fact that Mr. O’Rourke, and not Stacey Abrams or Andrew Gillum, is the
near miss candidate of 2018 who is being beckoned most forcefully toward the White
House has bothered some Democrats. They note that Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum came
closer to winning their races for governor in Georgia and Florida than Mr. O’Rourke did
in his Senate bid.

“Why Beto and not the other two?” asked Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina
legislator. “I think Andrew and Stacey are equally talented.”

Mr. Sellers questioned whether Mr. O’Rourke could prevail in a nomination contest that
will turn heavily on black voters in the South. “I look forward to welcoming Beto to the
Brookland Baptist Church,” he said, alluding to a historically black church near
Columbia, S.C. “I would love to be there to see if he can clap on beat.”

It has also not gone unnoticed that many of Mr. O’Rourke’s most vocal boosters from
Mr. Obama’s circle are men.

Jennifer Palmieri, a former senior aide to Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, responded on
Twitter this week to a CNN op-ed titled, “Beto-mania doesn’t do justice to women.”

“Legit reasons to love Beto. But worth reflecting on this,” Ms. Palmieri wrote. “I fear
intangible sentiments like ‘something about him that’s so inspiring’ can be mirror
images of ‘something about her I just don’t like’ & tied to pesky gender bias we have
yet to shake.”

Legit reasons to love Beto. But worth reflecting on this...I fear intangible sentiments
like “something about him that’s so inspiring” can be mirror images of “something
about her I just don’t like” & tied to pesky gender bias we have yet to shake.
https://t.co/5O8jA6SCEC

— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) December 5, 2018

Unlike Mr. Obama just before 2008 — a sitting senator for whom no office but the
presidency loomed as a plausible next step — Mr. O’Rourke has been urged at times to
run again back home. Some Texas Democrats are hoping he tries another Senate race in
2020 or seeks the governorship in 2022. But there are limits to Mr. O’Rourke’s appeal,
of course: Mr. Obama performed better in some rural Texas counties in 2012 than Mr.
O’Rourke did in 2018.

“I’d love for him to double down on what he just created and build on that,” said Amber
Mostyn, a Houston-based donor.

If nothing else, Mr. Sellers suggested, the debate over a white man’s viability in today’s
Democratic Party is a sign of the times.

“We’ve gone from people not believing Barack Obama can get the nomination, let alone
win the presidency, because a black guy can’t win,” Mr. Sellers said, “to the fact that
it’s going to be hard for Beto O’Rourke of El Paso to win.”