With the Democratic primary race in full swing, we've learned more about where the 2020 presidential election candidates stand on the issues — but who are these people really? Shondaland.com wanted to find out, so, with a questionnaire crafted by Shonda Rhimes herself, we reached out to every Democratic candidate who has announced their candidacy and asked them all the exact same questions. From what inspires them, to their favorite dance-floor jam to, of course, what they're planning to do in office, here's an opportunity to get to know your Democratic presidential hopefuls a little deeper.

Candidate: Beto O’Rourke

Current Office: None. Until earlier this year, O'Rourke served as a U.S. Representative of Texas' 16th District (since 2013).

You've Probably Heard That:

On the National Level:

One Key Issue He's Pushing Forward Right Now: Unlike many of the 2020 presidential contenders, O'Rourke does not presently hold public office, so he's unable to introduce legislation. As an advocate for comprehensive criminal justice reform, he supports eliminating for-profit prisons and ending cash bail.



Ahead, more about the candidate, in his own words.



When you made the decision to run for president, who is the first person you told?



I decided with my wife Amy, and then we told our three kids — Ulysses, Molly, and Henry.

What do you do to take care of yourself? How do you unwind?

Running.

What book (not including the Bible) has influenced you most?

Homer's The Odyssey.

Who inspires you? Why?

The people we're meeting at each of our 154 town halls across the country and the young people we've met on the 34 campuses we've visited who are not just the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today.

What are the most urgent issues facing women in America right now?

In this country, we began with this premise that we're all created equal. So many justifiably see that as a lie in their lives. Disparate opportunities, disparate outcomes. For women in this country they're still paid a fraction of what men are paid for the same work, the same number of hours, the same value provided at the job. Lack of equal pay in this country. Discrimination in the workplace. The disparities in health care among women, especially in the midst of a maternal mortality crisis three times as deadly for women of color in this country. A Supreme Court that can effectively turn over Roe v. Wade.

What have you already done to improve the lives of poor and middle-income Americans?

When I was on the City Council for six years in El Paso, we had, perhaps, the worst performing transit system in the country. You could get on a bus, but it was not guaranteed to get you to the next destination. And you have a community, one of the poorest urban counties of the United States of America, where so many El Pasoans just don't have a car. Don't have a family member or a friend who has a car, and depend on that bus to get them to school or get them to work. If our transit system wasn't working, it was a drag on our community and on our economy. So we invested in it — and it was not inexpensive. We had a partner, especially in the Obama administration at the federal level, who made that possible. TIGER grants among other funding sources that allowed us to turn around Sun Metro. We just put in a fixed rail trolley line that’s adding to economic development and growth. We have a ways to go, but we've made a ton of progress. So this is really important to me, near and dear to my heart from my days on City Council. It's going to take rail and transit and investment there to make sure people can connect to jobs.

How do we improve the public education system so every child gets a great education regardless of income?

In my home state of Texas, nearly half of public schools educators are working second or third jobs, just to make ends meet. Now, all three of my kids go to world-class public schools in El Paso. I think about their teachers or a cafeteria worker or a school bus driver who drives them in or the custodian worker who cleans up afterward or the nurse or the therapist or the librarian. All of the people who make their education and are helping to turn them into great adults and human beings down the road. All of that is on their shoulders, and then we ask them to take on a second or third job just to make ends meet, when they already have the most important job that I can think of: unlocking that life-long love of learning within that child, inherent to every single human being.

So we need to start by paying teachers a living wage. Too often teachers are paying out of their own pocket for the decorations in the classroom, the school supplies for kids who do not have them, the meal for that kid who shows up and is part of the free and reduced breakfast and lunch program but has no warm meal to go home to at the end of the day, or that kid who shows up in the same pair of jeans and T-shirt Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. By Friday, out of her own pocket, that schoolteacher has bought a new set of clothes. Understanding that kid’s ability to learn is tied to his sense of self, his dignity, so she or he makes that investment. Not only is this a pennywise and pound foolish, but the long term cost of those educators and their families also going to be devastating.

Also, we need to address the fact that on the first day of kindergarten, a child is five years old and some kids in the classroom are already going to be 10 months behind in reading comprehension, 12 months behind in math. That's day one of kindergarten. There will be no time to press pause and catch up. You're consigning those children to limited options, narrower futures. The chances of graduating from high school, going on to college, earning more in their lifetimes, is diminishing. So I would first like us to start education for every child, universally, in Pre-K at 4-years-old instead of 5-years-old to move that starting line back and give every kid something approaching an equal start.

Let's also recognize something that I never experienced growing up. In that same kindergarten classroom, if you were a child of color, they are five times more likely to be disciplined, suspended, or expelled at 5-years-old for the same infractions that a white child might commit in front of the same teacher. So understanding our schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline is connected to education policy, to criminal justice policy, and to confronting some of these hard truths.

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What is your comfort food?

Donuts.

Other than God and the Constitution, what do you believe in?

I believe in a woman's right to choose.

What's the issue/action in your past that the press and/or opposition is going to be (or has been) hardest on you about? What has this issue taught you and how has it changed how you handle things moving forward?

Twenty-three years ago, I was arrested for jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso. I spent a night in the El Paso County Jail, was able to make bail, and was released the next day. Three years later, I was arrested for drunk driving — a far more serious mistake for which there is no excuse.

My encounters with the criminal justice system did not ultimately define me or stop me from contributing to my family and community — as a father, small business owner, city council member, and congressman. But that isn’t the case for far too many of our fellow Americans, particularly those who don’t look like me or have the same privileges that I did. Instead, too many people are languishing behind bars for nonviolent crimes, often unconvicted and only there because they cannot afford bail. This leaves them unable to work, pay taxes, raise their kids, or contribute to our society.

They are part of the world’s largest prison population. One comprised disproportionately of people of color; built on prosecuting some communities for nonviolent drug offenses and not others, even though people of all races use illegal drugs at roughly the same rate. A prison population perpetuated by a school-to-prison pipeline that starts as early as kindergarten, where a black child is five times as likely to be suspended or expelled as a white child.

Many have called this the New Jim Crow, and for good reason. I’ve learned that our criminal justice system is stained by the same prejudices embedded in our history — that some people are less human, less equal than others. If we are to end mass incarceration, we must squarely confront the fact that every arm of the system is shaped by this legacy — from the over-policing of black and brown neighborhoods, to a judicial process marked by unequal resources, to prisons that set people up for failure rather than productive reentry.

If we are willing to listen to our fellow Americans and reckon with our history, we can build a future that is more just, more fair, and more prosperous for every single person.

What most concerns you about America's current position in the world?

We have a president who, instead of believing the scientists, says that wind turbines cause cancer. Instead of joining or leading the rest of the world, he has made the United States the one country out of 194 on the planet to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. Scientists tell us there are little more than 10 years left to us within which to act on climate change. In order to do that, we must be able to once again take our role on the world stage as the indispensable nation to convene the other powers of the planet around an otherwise intractable problem in order to get it done. But the challenge right now in order to do that could not be greater. We must re-enter the Paris Agreement and lead the negotiations for an even more ambitious global plan for 2030 and beyond.

What is your proudest political accomplishment? Proudest personal accomplishment?

Political : Veterans in my community were unable to get in and seek a mental health care provider. In fact, we ranked dead last in the United States for access for a mental health care provider for those veterans who literally put their lives on the line for this country in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and so many more wars we are still fighting right now at this moment. Nationally, we are losing 20 veterans a day, every single day, by their own hand. Sixteen of those 20 were unable, or for whatever reason unwilling, to go to the VA and see that provider who could help treat their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma — the signature wounds and conditions of war and combat and service to our country. See listen, I wrote the perfect legislation to try to address this, but those darn Republicans, they don't like our veterans as much, they don't work with me, I can't get it done until we get into the majority. If I came back with that kind of nonsense, my constituents would have called B.S. They would have voted me out of office, and I would have deserved it. Instead, we found those Republican colleagues with whom we could form the common ground, which meant we had to compromise a little bit, find some consensus, and do something far better than we had today. In other words, not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. And the bill that we wrote with my colleague, the Republican from Colorado, it opened up mental health care for veterans who have what is known as an other than an honorable discharge, who are taking their lives at twice the rate of the general veterans community. And it passed the House of Representatives 435-0, it passed the Senate, and it was signed into law by a president with whom I agree on almost nothing with. And we were able to work together to improve access and improve outcomes and save lives for those who had done so much for this country.

Personal : Raising our three amazing kids with my wife Amy and watching them become incredible human beings.

Who do you look up to?

Rep. John Lewis

What did you want to be when you grew up? What called you to a life of political service?

I wanted to be in the Beatles but ultimately my entire life — going back to my roots in El Paso, Texas, a city of immigrants that finds strength in our differences — has been about the work of bringing people together.

From running a small business, to serving on City Council, to representing my community in Congress — I've always found a way to bridge these divisions. Holding weekly town halls that kept me accountable to those I served and reconnecting people to their democracy. Delivering for my constituents on veterans' mental health and protecting public lands despite serving in the minority my entire time in office.

And then, running for Senate: driving record participation in a state that ranked dead last in voter turnout. By relentlessly showing up in places that had been written off and taken for granted — without taking a dime from PACs — we forever changed what’s possible in Texas.

We're going to bring that same drive, that same ambition to get after the challenges before us. Not just to defeat Donald Trump in November of 2020 but to bring people back into this democracy and ensure our country lives up to its promise and potential.

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What would you do to improve the current immigration policies?



I would never again separate another family when they come here at their most vulnerable and desperate moment. And I will make every effort, and we will spare no expense to reunite those families who have already been separated.



And then let's do this together and let's not do it as Democrats or independents or Republicans. But let's do this as Americans. Let's rewrite our immigration laws in our own image. Let's reflect our values, our reality, the best interests and traditions of this country that is comprised of immigrants and asylum-seekers and refugees.



Free every one of the more than 1 million Dreamers from any fear of deportation by making them U.S. citizens today here in their home country. And then give others who are laboring in the shadows right now, working some of the toughest jobs that we can imagine, let's bring them out of the shadows, allow them to contribute to their full potential, put them on a path to citizenship, and then ensure that our visa quotas match the labor demands that we have here, our desire to have families be able to reunite, and have everyone contribute to the shared greatness and success of this country.



I know that we can do it. We just have to set our minds to it and have a president who reflects that desire and that demand.



And I tell you, coming from a city of immigrants that also happens to be one of the safest cities in the United States of America, I've lived this experience. I have a powerful story to tell about the positive impact of immigrants, and that will be reflected in the White House under our administration.

The current administration has rolled back or eliminated many policies that support safe, fair and dignified work and educational environments for a majority of Americans (including LGBTQ, people of color, differently abled, women, the poor). As president, what policies would you work to reinstate?

I would reverse the ban on transgender service members, Secretary Devos' changes to the Title IX, the work requirements on Medicaid, the cuts to Medicaid — which most people do not realize is a primary source of support for individuals with disabilities — and Trump's $2 trillion tax cut for corporations and those already sitting on a pile of cash.

How will you combat climate change?

By implementing the most detailed, ambitious climate plan this country has ever seen — getting us to our net-zero emissions by 2050. We know that this world has cooked a degree Celsius just since 1980 and that that warming caused, not by God, or by Mother Nature, but by all of us, is responsible for the floods, the fires, the droughts, the storms that we're seeing at historic, epic proportions. This has taken properties, entire communities, and the lives of our fellow Americans and our fellow human beings. Understanding that we have a decade left to us to make sure that we do everything in our power, take the boldest possible positions, and then implement them, not by half measure, nor by half steps, nor with only half the country, but all of us doing everything we can at this defining moment of truth to free ourselves from a dependence on fossil fuels.

When you need to dance it out, what is the song you listen to?

The Who - Baba O'Riley



Brianna Ellis-Mitchell

Who is your "political bestie"? I know you work incredibly hard but which elected official do you enjoy hanging out with the most?

Rep. Veronica Escobar

What is America doing right? What makes you hopeful?

I am as inspired, and as hopeful, as I have ever been in my life. So many nations on this planet define themselves by race, or by ethnicity, or by common genealogy. Exceptionally, the United States defines itself by an ideal – put on paper 243 years ago – that we are all created equal. The idea is that we are created equal and should have equal opportunity to contribute to this country's greatness. We, of course, have never fully lived up to that idea, or that ideal, but I always had the sense that we are striving to get there. I think about our ability to demonstrate a profound respect to one another. I could care less to whom you pray, or who you love, or where you came from, or where you live today. All that matters now is that you're an American first, before you're anything else, and we're going to find a way to work together, to find the common ground, to do the common good for this country. Our moments of success, and triumph, and breakthrough, and change, have always come when we've been able to see past the differences that would otherwise divide us. But this moment is the mother of all tests for that proposition, because you have someone in office who uses the most powerful bully pulpit on the planet to make us angry, afraid, to keep us apart from one another. In our division, he sees perhaps his victory. Of course the antidote to that is finding our commonality, our shared humanity, an ability to unite despite those differences and divisions. We must distinguish ourselves not by whom we hate, who we are against, who we are not, but by our common ambitions, our aspirations, the work, the sacrifice, the service we're willing to employ, and bring to bear, in order to achieve our goal.

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