How Beto O'Rourke Could Win The 2020 Democratic Primary
It wasnt always clear whether Beto ORourke would run for president, but he sure did flirt with the idea. He took a road trip across America and kept a (very public) diary about it. He agreed to an interview with The New York Times in which he talked about his vaguely misspent youth as a nanny in New York City. He talked to Oprah.
These have all seemed like the moves of a recently unknown man building a narrative for his coming fame. Today, the former congressman from Texas made his candidacy official. It seems that ORourke will now tend to that growing fame by crisscrossing the icy, fallow fields of Iowa.
Since his November 2018 Senate loss to Ted Cruz, ORourke has been one of the most-buzzed-about potential candidates in the 2020 Democratic field. That excitement could help propel him to the top of the primary heap, but first hell need to prove that he can run and endure a national campaign.
ORourke, a three-term congressman, only truly captured national attention in the last year or so. He lost to Cruz by less than 3 percentage points, but his campaign was notable for how close he came to winning in deeply Republican Texas. If theres an elevator pitch for ORourkes presidential candidacy, thats more or less it: I came this close to turning Texas blue. Imagine what I could do nationally.
Read more: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-beto-orourke-could-win-the-2020-democratic-primary/