Texan O’Rourke plans White House bid
BURLINGTON, Iowa — Democrat Beto O’Rourke jumped into the 2020 presidential race Thursday, shaking up the already packed field and pledging to win over voters from across the political spectrum as he tries to translate his sudden celebrity into a White House bid.
The former Texas congressman began his campaign by taking his first-ever trip to Iowa, the state that kicks off the presidential primary voting.
“Let us not allow our differences to define us as at this moment,” O’Rourke told a whooping crowd of 120 at a coffee shop in tiny Burlington, in southeast Iowa. “History calls for us to come together.”
Until O’Rourke challenged Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last year, he was little known outside his hometown of El Paso. But the Spanish-speaking, 46-year-old former punk rocker used grass-roots organizing and social media savvy to mobilize young voters and minorities and get within 3 percentage points of winning in the nation’s largest red state.
In Keokuk, O’Rourke took questions about his support of federal legalization of marijuana as well as the possibility of a universal basic income. It was the kind of high-energy, off-the-cuff style that made him a sensation in Texas and a huge fundraiser nationwide.
O’Rourke refused donations from outside political groups and shunned pollsters during his Senate campaign.
Nonetheless, his nationwide popularity helped him rake in more than $80 million during the Senate bid.