WASHINGTON--Memo to Beto O’Rourke: That buzz you’ve heard over the sobs of your admirers in Texas isn’t just in your imagination.
On Monday morning, six days after the El Paso Democrat fell just short against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Polk County Democratic Party in Des Moines -- home to one third of Iowa’s Democratic voters --invited him to visit.
Rumors had circulated all weekend that the Texas congressman had popped up in Des Moines or Iowa City or other reaches of the state that hosts the first nominating contest of 2020.
“People were going crazy trying to figure where he was and what I knew and where he might be going,” said Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats. “It was like Beatlemania, for God’s sake. It was like all weekend long, supposed sightings. ... There’s definitely some electricity there.”
The Texan hadn't yet responded to the invitation.
In the political salons of Iowa and New Hampshire, where jockeying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nod began months ago, O’Rourke’s narrow loss piqued the interest of party activists.
He raised an eye-popping $70 million in a bid to turn Texas purple, falling short by just 2.6 percentage points, the closest a Texas Democrat has come to nabbing a statewide office in two decades.
A Morning Consult/Politico poll released Monday afternoon showed O'Rourke running third among Democratic voters nationwide on their wish list for 2020, behind only former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Biden, a senator for 36 years and vice president for eight, was the choice of 26 percent of those polled. Sanders, runner-up to Hillary Clinton for the 2016 nomination, was picked by 19 percent. O’Rourke, barely known in Texas before he launched his bid for Senate, came in third with 8 percent.
Take that with a grain of salt. Barack Obama came from nowhere to win the presidency in 2008, but he’d won the office O’Rourke couldn’t quite nab last week. Being third on a long list of contenders reflects the torrent of free publicity he attracted in the last month.
“Those are the names people know. I put very little stock in the predictive value of polls taken at this point,” said Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. “It’s probably just a reflection of the media attention he’s gotten the last month or so.”
The Granite State Poll hasn’t yet included O’Rourke. The Texan may soon be forgotten if he doesn't take steps to stoke interest, Smith said, and if voters do remember him, they’re also likely to “remember that he lost, which isn’t usually a resume enhancer.”
Still, “Beto 2020” and “Beto for President” signs began sprouting at rallies in Texas in the final weeks, and a #BetoforPresident hashtag is making the rounds on Twitter.
O’Rourke hasn’t stoked the speculation. He hasn’t tamped it down, either.
On Sunday, he sent an email thanking supporters, spiced with just enough ambiguity to raise the eyebrows of pundits and party activists.
“The loss is bitter,” he wrote.
“Certainly, we changed something in Texas and in our politics. At the very least our campaign reflected a change already underway in Texas that hadn’t yet been seen in statewide campaigns. Future campaigns will be won, influenced by the one we built. Candidates will run who otherwise wouldn’t have. Some will take heart in knowing that you don’t have to accept PAC money, you don’t have to hire a pollster to know how you think or what you want to say....
“Just know that I want to be part of the best way forward for this country -- whatever way I can help in whatever form that takes,” he wrote.
'Everybody ... is asking for Beto'
In New Hampshire, the state Democratic Party hasn’t invited O’Rourke to visit so far, said spokeswoman Sarah Guggenheimer, and on the Texan’s part, “there’s been no outreach to the party but we’re always open to that.”
In Des Moines, the local party -- a major player in the caucuses -- issued a standing invitation.
“We would love to host him,” Bagniewski said. “He was unapologetically progressive. He’s a young face. He wasn’t afraid to be himself. Democrats are often very poll tested, very consultant-driven. He was more authentic in a way that people haven’t seen since Barack Obama, so he connected with people nationwide in ways that some of our more cautious political leaders haven’t.”
“It’s real. In Iowa, everybody knows the next person that they want to meet and by far he is the No. 1 person that’s being requested right now -- volunteers. Elected officials. Our membership base,” he said. “Everybody right now is asking for Beto.”
Iowa Democrats were rooting for him to take down Cruz.
“Everybody hates him,” said Bret Nilles, the Democratic chairman in Linn County, Iowa’s second biggest county, which includes Cedar Rapids. “People understand the realities of running against an incumbent in a state like Texas. People admire what he did and how much he raised.”
“A lot of people in Iowa would look forward to meeting him,” he said. “Most people are looking for a progressive. If he came out he could be a contender, but it depends on who else runs.”
One reason the speculation has simmered is that the field has no prohibitive front-runner. Nearly 20 candidates are sowing seeds.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey headlined the Iowa party’s fall gala last month. Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota stumped for Iowa candidates in recent weeks. Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley turned up a month ago at a Democratic barbecue at the Johnson County Fairgrounds in Iowa City.
Julian Castro, the former housing secretary in the Obama administration and former mayor of San Antonio, stumped at the Iowa State Fair last summer. He promises a decision soon on whether he’ll run. Some Texas analysts say he’s already been eclipsed by O’Rourke, though in such a huge field, there’s minimal pressure on anyone to take a pass.
Outgoing Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado is exploring a bid. So is Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who said she had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump shortly after the birth of his youngest child.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has been in Iowa recently. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles are thinking about running. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts may run.
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell of California has made more than a dozen trips to Iowa since early 2017. Maryland Rep. John Delaney also is running.
In Scott County, Iowa’s third biggest, Democratic chairman Thom Hart, a former mayor of Davenport, has seen Garcetti, Klobuchar, Bullock and Sanders recently. His impression of O’Rourke, from afar, is that he is charismatic and has potential.
But he wonders how the loss to Cruz will play.
“We weren’t paying a ton of attention beyond hoping that Cruz went down,” he said. “I don’t think it’s an enhancement to have lost a statewide race.”
When Barack Obama was mentioned in 2004 as new blood, he had won a Senate seat. Even then, “a lot of people discounted him as a freshman” when he ran for president in 2008.
Smith agreed that the Texan’s resume is light: a stint on the El Paso City Council, six years in the U.S. House, and “as a congressman he hasn’t been on the forefront of any issue.”
He noted that big money isn’t what it takes to win in New Hampshire or Iowa. Organization is critical in the early nominating states. O’Rourke impressed Texas Democrats with the army of field staff he deployed around the state.
“With $70 million you might as well just write people checks. You run out of things to buy,” Smith said.
He also wondered if O’Rourke’s ability to attract scads of donations was a fluke. Cruz, he noted, “is one of the most disliked Republicans -- maybe by Republicans, as well. Some of that is catching lightning in a bottle. Can you do it twice? That’s the question.”
