Former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke continues to be noncommittal about a potential presidential run in 2020, while making his interest in the job well known.
In a lengthy feature published Wednesday by Vanity Fair magazine, the 46-year-old was sure to frame talks of a 2020 run – or an O’Rourke administration – as purely hypothetical, but said in no uncertain terms that he’d like to throw his hat in the ring.
“You can probably tell that I want to run,” he said. “I do. I think I’d be good at it.”
“Man, I’m just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.”
It's another step closer to a widely expected announcement. Late last month, O'Rourke said he and his wife had "made a decision" about his political future and that it didn't involve a 2020 Senate run.
The idea of O’Rourke 2020 was floated immediately after – and, in some circles, before – his loss to incumbent Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate during the 2018 midterms.
During that campaign, O’Rourke set fundraising records and gained viral fame on social media en route to a historic Democratic challenge in deep-red Texas. Since then, he’s seen his name near the top of early primary polls and he’s even broached the subject with President Barack Obama.
O’Rourke’s self-imposed, end-of-February deadline for an announcement has come and gone. He told Vanity Fair that that declaration – made to Oprah in early February – came as a surprise even to him.
“I did not intend to say that,” he told the magazine.
He would join an already-crowded Democratic field of 14 candidates that runs the demographic gamut, and he’s self-aware about his party’s desire for diversity in a political world he says is “overly represented by white men.”
“That’s part of the problem, and I’m a white man,” So if I were to run, I think it’s just so important that those who would comprise my team looked like this country. If I were to run, if I were to win, that my administration looks like this country. It’s the only way I know to meet that challenge.”