Sure feels like it’s a matter of when and not if Rep. Beto O’Rourke announces his candidacy for US Senate.
Re. Beto O’Rourke
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, is sailing toward a 2018 Senate campaign — an uphill battle that would pit the little-known congressman against one of the state’s most prominent Republicans in the unpredictable era of President Donald Trump.
“I really want to do this,” O’Rourke said in an interview Saturday in which he also promised to run a positive campaign against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas — no matter how much animus the incumbent inspires among Texas Democrats.
“Being against Ted Cruz is not a strategy,” O’Rourke said. “It might motivate some folks and might make the election of a Democrat for the first time in 30 years more likely, but it in itself is not a strategy, and so I’m really putting my time and my efforts and my thinking into what makes Texas a better place and what makes the lives of the people who live in this state better, and so I’m just going to stay focused on that.”
O’Rourke has said for weeks that he is likely to take on Cruz but has not set a timeline for an official announcement. He said Saturday he wants to make sure he is mindful of his current constituents and that “I’m thoughtful in how I make this decision and keep El Paso, my family, foremost in mind.”
“I don’t want to run unless we’re going to win, and I’m confident we can,” O’Rourke said. “I just want to make sure the way we do this, we set ourselves up for victory.”
[…]
If O’Rourke runs for Senate, fundraising would likely be one of his biggest challenges. While he was the underdog in his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz has since built a national fundraising network, partly through his 2016 presidential bid.
O’Rourke has already made clear he plans not to accept PAC money in a potential Senate campaign. Asked Saturday if that would apply to money from national Democratic groups who may want to help him out, O’Rourke held firm that he “won’t take money from political action committees — and that’s across the spectrum.”
“I think folks just need to know that, clean and simple,” O’Rourke said. “When you start picking and choosing then, you know, it becomes a slippery slope and you just start doing what everyone else is doing, what everyone is so sick of and what has made Washington so dysfunctional and corporate.”
See here, here, and here for some background. As noted before, we are probably not going to get any kind of positive announcement until after the March 31 campaign finance deadline for the first quarter. I will say again, I really hope Rep. O’Rourke has a plan to achieve the kind of grassroots fundraising success he talks about, because it ain’t easy to do. Neither is running for Senate with less than a full complement of resources, as Paul Sadler and Rick Noriega and Barbara Radnofsky could tell you. Believe me, I’m rooting for Rep. O’Rourke, and I’ll chip in when the time comes, I’m just trying to be clear-headed about the road ahead.
On the matter of whether or not his colleague Rep. Joaquin Castro will join him in this quest, Rep. O’Rourke says that while Rep. Castro is his friend and he’d be a great Senator himself, he can’t and won’t wait to see what someone else does to make his own decision. Fair enough. I still don’t believe the two of them will square off in a primary, but 2018 is going to be a weird year, so who knows what might happen.
He will get some money support from me as well, but have to wait to see who is running.