Updated at 3:25 p.m.: Revised with O'Rourke comments in Burlington, Iowa.

BURLINGTON, Iowa — Beto O'Rourke kicked off his presidential bid Thursday with a relentlessly upbeat pitch for Americans to look past their divisions — paired with tough words for the man he hopes to replace, President Donald Trump.

"We have a commander in chief who ... doesn't believe in the institutions that he is sworn to protect and serve, and to defend," he told as many as 200 Iowans packed into a coffeehouse in downtown Burlington, on the banks of the Mississippi.

He'd climbed up onto the counter beside the cash register and a platter of muffins for all to see, a vision of vigor that may stand him apart from some of his toughest competitors, among them Bernie Sanders and, quite likely, Joe Biden, both septuagenarians.

O'Rourke spent a half-hour up there, pitching himself as something of a post-partisan, even as he ticked off a litany of progressive stances: legalized marijuana, expanded health care, a welcoming immigration policy, and the Green New Deal to fight climate change. He decried the GOP tax cuts and Trump's approach to the presidency.

He treated Iowans as if he were one of them, as when one asked about tariffs and he replied that "30 percent of what we grow in this state is bound for foreign markets, all over the world."

He decried costly wars and lamented a $2 trillion GOP-backed tax cut that went mostly to the wealthy and to corporations even as teachers have to work two jobs and college graduates struggle with debt.

"In El Paso, we know that those kids will ask, `Who were those pendejos?' We don't want to be those pendejos," he said, invoking — as he often did in his Senate bid — a Spanish term for dolt. It drew hearty laughs from much of the crowd.

Cable news shows lavished him with coverage, and the Washington press corps was well-represented in Iowa. But as Iowans know, buzz doesn't always last.

"I find him probably to be the most exciting candidate since Barack Obama," said Joe Glenn, 31, a community college history teacher, as he ordered a coffee. O'Rourke is less specific than others in the field so far, he said, but "I think he can bridge the moderate-progressive divide better than anyone."

Video launch

O'Rourke formally launched his long-anticipated campaign with an early-morning video, ending four months of suspense as he seeks to harness buzz generated in a near-miss bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz last fall.

Within hours, he was stumping in the farthermost corner of southeast Iowa, in Keokuk, and then it was on to Fort Madison and Burlington at the outset of a three-day swing through Iowa, which hosts the first nominating contest in just under 11 months.

O'Rourke plans a March 30 kickoff rally in El Paso, where he's shown a knack for drawing big crowds — for campaign rallies, to protest the Trump administration's separation of migrant families, and as a show of force when Trump himself came to town to pitch an expanded border wall. It's where he grew up and served on the City Council, and it's the district he represented in Congress for six years after ousting a 12-term Democratic incumbent.

"Beto-mania" spiked in the days after his narrow loss to Cruz, with Iowans even reporting phantom sightings.

This was his first visit to Iowa, though. By Saturday night, he'll have visited a dozen of its 99 counties. During the Senate race, he visited all 254 Texas counties and mocked Cruz for abandoning Texans early in his Senate term to pursue his own presidential ambitions, visiting all 99 Iowa counties along the way.

Asked Thursday by The Dallas Morning News whether he'd seek to pull off the same feat, now that he's running for president — known as the "full Grassley" after veteran Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley — O'Rourke gave a slightly vague response:

"We're going to go to every single part of Iowa."

Looking for a Trump foe

In Burlington, Democrats crowded into the coffeeshop mostly weren't ready to commit to O'Rourke, but were overwhelmingly eager to find someone, anyone, who can put Trump out of office.

"I want to see him in handcuffs. And his minions," said Sue Harms, an IT professional from Dallas City, Ill., across the river.

She was still forming her opinion of O'Rourke.

"He's young and vibrant and he's got some good ideas. He's under 80, so that's a big plus," she said. "I'd like to see somebody under 80 run. No offense to Bernie and Biden, but c'mon. I don't want my grandma or grandpa running the country."

At each stop, O'Rourke spoke of climate change as a crisis, treading carefully on one of the progressive litmus tests, the Green New Deal promoted by Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York. In Keokuk, he called it the best idea he's aware of to combat the crisis — leaving himself some wiggle room to pick and choose among the many controversial elements.

In Burlington, he called for applying term limits to Supreme Court justices and maybe even expanding the size of the court, a court-stacking plan reminiscent of FDR that would require congressional approval that he's unlikely to get without a major shift in the balance of power in Washington.

"He has a message. I think he has a message that will resonate with a lot of groups of people. In Iowa, that's a good thing," said DiAnne Lerud-Chubb, vice chair of the Des Moines County Democrats in Burlington, a blue-collar town along the Mississippi.

Iowa's caucuses, set for Feb. 3, will be the first opportunity for voters to winnow the field. O'Rourke, 46, faces senators, possibly a former vice president and governors, some with decades more experience in elected office. He's the 13th Democrat to formally declare a presidential primary run.

Few entered the race with a donor list as extensive as his.

O'Rourke raised $80 million in the Senate bid, nearly all from small-dollar donations — a record for any Senate candidate in any state, ever. He'll need as many as possible to stick by him, now that he's competing with the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders, who raised $6 million in the first 24 hours after announcing his own campaign last month.

1 / 4Beto O'Rourke was the focus of attention as he left a campaign stop in Burlington, Iowa, on Thursday. At right is his aide Cynthia Cano.(Todd J. Gillman / Staff) 2 / 4Beto O'Rourke stumps at the Beancounter Coffeehouse & Drinkery in Burlington, Iowa, on March 14, 2019, the first day of his presidential campaign.(Todd J. Gillman / staff) 3 / 4Beto O'Rourke stumps at the Beancounter Coffeehouse & Drinkery in Burlington, Iowa, on March 14, 2019, the first day of his presidential campaign.(Todd J. Gillman / staff) 4 / 4Beto O'Rourke stands on the counter at the Beancounter Coffeehouse & Drinkery in Burlington, Iowa, on March 14, 2019, the first day of his presidential campaign.(Todd J. Gillman / staff)

GOP reaction

Republicans were quick to react. Trump himself mocked the Texan's video during a meeting in the Oval Office with the Irish prime minister.

"I think he's got a lot of hand movement," Trump told reporters. "I've never seen so much hand movement. I said, 'Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts?' ... I've actually never seen anything quite like it. Study it. I'm sure you'll agree."

Trump added that he would take on any Democratic candidate, and touted the economy.

Cruz, tweeting with the hashtag #BeatBeto, hit O'Rourke over his border stance.

Beto O'Rourke said he wants to tear down the wall. Texans want a secure border.



We need to say NO to Beto's radical agenda. #BeatBeto: https://t.co/AONybAJ9dE pic.twitter.com/YJyZeq5nBT — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 14, 2019

The Republican National Committee issued a "cheat sheet" that criticized O'Rourke's opposition to a border wall, called him a socialist and highlighted a drunken driving arrest the night he turned 26. It featured his mug shot from that arrest.

The @GOP wastes little time issuing a "cheat sheet" on @BetoORourke, poking at him on a half-dozen fronts. pic.twitter.com/O5PZfln6Xw — Todd J. Gillman (@toddgillman) March 14, 2019

Texas GOP chairman James Dickey accused O'Rourke of pushing for "open borders" and weak immigration enforcement, "joining several fellow Socialists with a message that resonates much better with Democrat primary voters than average Texans and Americans."

Catching up in Iowa

Most of the other Democrats running for president spent time last year in Iowa and New Hampshire, planting seeds ahead of formally jumping into the race. O'Rourke has some catching up to do.

O'Rourke catapulted to national attention last year when he challenged Cruz. Although he fell short, he held the first-term Republican below 51 percent in a state where Democrats haven't won a statewide office since 1994.

That gave a jolt of optimism to Democrats that Texas is teetering and might, at long last, be pried from the GOP grip. And if Texas slips from their column, Republicans have no plausible path to win the White House.

Iowans weren't sure what to make of O'Rourke's loss. Some questioned whether he deserves so much attention in the 2020 field.

"We were sad that he lost. I really thought he could win," said Liz Yonker, 38, a stay-at-home mom from West Burlington who'd brought along 5-year-old Emmy to see O'Rourke, promising her a hot chocolate. Still, she added him to a personal list that already includes Sen. Kamala Harris and Biden, the former vice president. "I want someone who's not playing," she said. "I want somebody kind and compassionate. Anything other than [Trump]."

The Texan's message at the outset of the campaign is familiar to anyone who heard him speak during the Texas Senate race. O'Rourke spoke in his rollout video of a "moment of peril" for the nation, and of "interconnected crises in our economy, our democracy and our climate."

He made no direct reference to Trump, or his own support for impeachment, but did touch generally on issues dear to the Democratic electorate: campaign finance, the social safety net, expanded access to health care, and criminal justice reform.

"We can begin by fixing our democracy and ensuring that our government works for everyone, and not just for corporations. We can invest in the dignity of those who work and those who seek to work. We can ensure that every single American can see a doctor and be well enough to live to their full potential," he said in the three-minute video, his wife, Amy, at his side.

On his signature issue, immigration, he said: "If immigration is a problem, it's the best possible problem for this country to have, and we should ensure that there are lawful paths to work, to be with family and to flee persecution."

He sidestepped the topic of reparations that has flared in the primary, but said: "We can work on real justice reform and confront the hard truths of slavery, and segregation and suppression in these United States of America."

O'Rourke and his inner circle had kept tight-lipped about his intentions. Two weeks ago, he ruled out a run against Sen. John Cornyn next year, to the disappointment of some Texas Republicans who viewed him as the strongest challenger coming off his effort against Cruz.

In recent days, emails from his team switched from betofortexas.com to betoorourke.com.

On Wednesday, campaign volunteers received emails urging them to sign up for a new set of alerts to ensure they would be part of any effort to elect him president.