Does Beto O'Rourke Stand A Chance For The Democratic Nomination?

By Christianna Silva


On Wednesday, March 13, Democrat Beto O’Rourke reported that he’s officially throwing his hat into a wildly crowded field of presidential hopefuls in the 2020 elections. People were unsurprised – he had been hinting at a presidential run since he lost a challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by just three percentage points last year, and teasing out his “decision” with Facebook ads, and profiles in the New York Times and Vanity Fair – however confused nonetheless. Despite the buzz, we don’t have much of an idea of where he stands on national issues or how he plans to govern.


in case you know O’Rourke’s name, it’s likely because of his unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat in 2018. The 46-year-old El Paso native brought in a record of more than $80 million from mostly small-donor donations if he ran against the incumbent Cruz, and garnered a national following soon after he responded to a town hall question about NFL players kneeling throughout the national anthem in protest of police brutality on August 21, 2018. In the now-viral clip, he mentioned he “can think of nothing more American than to peacefully stand up, or take a knee, for your rights, whenever, anywhere, in any place.” His campaign was widely supported by activists, politicians, and celebrities alike, including Beyoncé and former Director of the CIA John Brennan. He campaigned on a ambitious criminal justice reform agenda, legalizing marijuana, Medicare for all, and stricter gun control laws including mandatory background checks.


as soon as he reported his candidacy for the Democratic nomination, the former congressman called it “a defining moment of truth for this nation for each and every one of us.”


“The only way for us to live up to the promise of America is to give it our all and to give it for all of us. We are truly right now more than ever the last excellent hope of Earth,” O’Rourke mentioned in a video. “At this moment of maximum peril and maximum potential, let’s show ourselves and those who will succeed us in this fantastic nation just who we are and what we can do.”


As it stands, his platform includes the same Democratic stances that several of the other democratic candidates are running on: improving the Affordable Care Act, background checks on gun sales and ending some of military actions on the southern border. Since his Senate campaign was run on broad liberal messaging, without a signature policy offer, he’ll need to parse that out sort in attempt to be competitive in a crowded Democratic field. While we do know that he’s voted more conservatively than the average Democrat, nevertheless Vox’s Tara Golshan argues, his apparently vague platforms may actually let him to “both harness progressive grassroots energy, and also because the ‘no labels’ voter.”


Unlike other Democratic candidates — like Senators Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Kamala Harris —  O’Rourke just doesn’t have the same experience as his competitors; before O’Rourke was in Congress, he ran a web design agency, and later spent six years on the El Paso City Council. (To be fair, Speaker of the Home of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said she thinks that’s plenty experience.)


Only two men have ever won the presidency with a background as Congressmen alone: Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield. Needless to say, experience isn’t routinely a factor in winning the presidency — Zachary Taylor, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Donald Trump all who won the presidency without any political experience at all — although it’s telling that people remember Beto more for his charisma than his policies. O’Rourke can command an audience, he was in a punk rock band, he sweats a lot and he got as well as Oprah pretty well: none of which will alleviate the difficulties of hurtling through a Democratic primary, although do appeal to the popularity contest of it all.


It’s crucial to remember that there really is plenty working in O’Rourke’s favor: if he may almost flip Texas from red to blue, political analysts wonder what he may do to the full nation. In his 2018 bid, he won in big cities, pulling in a solid quantity of enthusiasm from voters and helping increase midterm voter turnout. In recognizing the fact that folks are famished for a president who isn’t another white man, O’Rourke has pledged to build out a diverse campaign team. (As the Washington Post notes, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Research noticed that his Congressional employees was among the least diverse.)


“The government at all levels is overly represented by white men,” he told Vanity Fair. “That’s segment of the problem, and I’m a white man. So if I were to run, I think it’s just so crucial that those who would comprise my team looked like this nation. If I were to run, if I were to win, that my administration looks like this nation. It’s the only way I know to meet that challenge.


It remains to be seen if that will be enough to convince minority voters that he has their best interests at heart — that is, if he even clenches the Democratic nomination — but at least he can visualize why folks are frustrated that he isn’t exactly representative of diversity himself.


It’s unclear whether that will be enough to pull him through a wildly competitive presidential primary. Over the course of the upcoming months, he’ll have to expand on some of his dreams and sustain the excitement he garnered in the 2018 midterms to keep his audience. Although he’s definitely making waves: His announcement tweet has thousands of engagements and he’s already on the cover of Vanity Fair, saying “I’m just place on Earth to do this.”