Beto O’Rourke likes running. The presidential candidate has made jogging part of his election toolkit, from his campaign against the decidedly less athletic Ted Cruz, to repeated 5km jaunts across Iowa as he bids for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Wednesday morning saw O’Rourke’s latest display of physical prowess, as the former Texas congressman popped up in New York to run two miles with LGBTQ activists. O’Rourke is due shortly to launch a series of policies to protect gay rights.

O’Rourke turned up right on time, ready for action. The 47-year-old was decked out in full running garb for the two-mile jog, mid-thigh shorts displaying willowy legs. He was wearing an Iowa Cubs baseball hat, which seemed on message given the importance of the Hawkeye State in the Democratic primaries.

“Everybody ready to run?” O’Rourke asked the roughly 30 people who had assembled on a popular running path close to the Hudson River. There was a muted response. “Two miles is all we’re doing,” he added, which served to lift spirits a little.

With that, O’Rourke bolted off down the pathway, surrounded by people who appeared to have varied levels of commitment to running. Most were wearing the customary shorts, T-shirts and trainers, but one man had opted for the less orthodox white denim jeans, while another wore cut-offs.

Paul Humphries was dressed more traditionally, in shorts and a rainbow-emblazoned Beto for Senate T-shirt, although confessed he was not much of a trackman.

“I am a runner, although not a very good one,” he said.

Humphries is originally from Texas and has been living in New York for the past 15 years. Despite the Beto T-shirt, he is yet to choose a candidate to support. “It’s too early to say,” he said. “I’m still open. But I think Beto’s an important part of the conversation we’re having.”

The O’Rourke campaign said the run was “in honor of Pride month”, and coincided with the unveiling of several LGBTQ-focused policies. As president, O’Rourke would take executive action to reverse Donald Trump’s ban on trans people in the military, his team said, and would create a universal healthcare system “with explicit protections against discrimination”.

O’Rourke said: “Too many LGBTQ+ people still lack protection under many states’ laws and the current administration is encouraging rather than stamping out discrimination. We must ensure all Americans are treated equally no matter who they are or who they love.”

O’Rourke has been criticized for an early lack of specific policy ideas – and a perceived sense of entitlement – but the Human Rights Campaign, in endorsing O’Rourke for the Senate in 2018, described him as a “proven champion of equality”.

Runner Nora Moore said: “He’s an ally of so many marginalized communities and I think he walks the walk and I find that inspirational in a politician.”

O’Rourke speaks to reporters after the run. In a recent poll he had just 2% of the vote. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

Moore, 36, was running with a stroller containing her four-year-old daughter Fiona. She said she has trained for two half-marathons in this fashion, and showed no signs of fatigue as the runners headed towards the finish. O’Rourke is Moore’s choice for the nomination “as of right now”; she has been volunteering for his campaign in New York.

She said: “I’m one of those complicit individuals who sort of was asleep at the wheel a little bit, thought everything was great, assumed my girl Hillary was going to win, and then when it didn’t happen I just got really invested in being more involved.”

O’Rourke was riding high on the winds of his close loss to Cruz when he entered the 2020 race. But in a recent Iowa poll he had just 2% of the vote, and in New Hampshire just 1%.

Despite that, O’Rourke was defiant when the Guardian asked about his drooping numbers.

“There’s no poll taken in June the year before a presidential election that accurately predicted the outcome,” he said. He pointed to low polling numbers during his Texas Senate race.

“We cannot allow polls to determine our chances. Nor as president will I allow polls to determine what we focus on. We’ll do what is right for the right reasons, regardless of the political consequences.”

As for the run, O’Rourke showed no sign of tiring, unlike the Guardian. As this reporter strained to keep up, Moore dashed past, Fiona bobbing up and down in the stroller. She was followed by the man in the white jeans.