NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa — At a “Potluck Insurgency” gathering in Iowa this week, Julián Castro previewed his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, a campaign that evolved after the 2016 election and that emphasizes his San Antonio roots.

Responding to a question about prescription drug prices, Castro spoke of his immigrant grandmother, who lost a foot to diabetes and later her life to complications from the disease.

“You all know that with diabetes, that often happens. But she had medicine, and Medicare enabled her care,” Castro said, using a family story to buttress his support for a so-called Medicare for All approach to health insurance.

The ability to get care, Castro added, “should not depend first on the profit of Big Pharma or any other industry.”

Recalling his years as San Antonio mayor, Castro described his hometown to Iowans as “one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most diverse cities.” He even mentioned the River Walk.

Crowds who turn out Saturday at Plaza Guadalupe to hear Castro announce his decision to run will get a glimpse of the family appeal Castro has tailored over months of planning.

His mother, Rosie, a former activist Castro describes as his inspiration, will introduce him. He and twin brother Joaquin, a congressman from San Antonio, plan to arrive on the public bus line they took to school as boys. The entry will be streamed live on Facebook. Joaquin planned to make a pitch for donations from the stage.

The candidacy Castro spells out in a venue rich in Mexican-American culture likely will become a rallying point for Hispanic voters. Depending on its success, it could propel Texas back onto the stage of national Democratic politics after a decades-long absence.

Texas could become an even bigger player if Beto O’Rourke jumps in on the strength of the buzz he generated in a strong but losing challenge to Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz last year.

Castro, 44, who was housing secretary in the Obama administration, is an early entrant in a race likely to feature one of the biggest and most diverse fields of Democratic hopefuls ever. Some two-dozen politicians of varied backgrounds have expressed interest and at least half are expected to join the fray.

At this point, it is a competition lacking a candidate with a claim to the nomination.

Castro and other Democrats will compete for attention and viral moments in a political environment starkly different from the past, with the internet central to all facets of campaigns and the rules of presidential politics unclear after Donald Trump’s rise.

What hasn’t changed is the need to win over a Democratic base itching to retake the White House.

In Iowa, which opens the primary season with precinct caucuses on Feb. 3, 2020, Castro made a strong first impression on Leann Cortimigli, who said after his pitch that she expects him to rise to the first tier of candidates.

“He reminds me of a young Barack Obama,” said Cortimigli, 60.

But Carolyn Shultz, 21, suggested that Castro fell short on projecting urgency, potentially useful advice for a politician given to measured tones and easy humor rather than bursts of outrage. Many in Iowa had turned out days earlier to take in Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s brand of edgy politics.

“I don’t think he has the spark. I don’t think he’s angry enough. I’m angry,” said Shultz, reading a novel as others lined up for photos with the visitor from Texas.

In Iowa, Castro was emphatic on a point that candidates like to make these days. “I’m not from Washington,” he said, “and I believe that we need to change the culture of Washington.”

A jarring career change

Two years ago, Washington looked pretty good to Castro. Hardly anyone thought Hillary Clinton would lose, including Castro, who had spent two-and a-half years running the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He thought he’d land in her administration; preliminary discussions had taken place.

“I expected that I would continue to serve in some capacity in a new administration,” Castro said recently.

In “An Unlikely Journey,” Castro’s autobiography published in October, he recalled the shock of Election Night, which he spent in New York with a room full of VIPs. He went back to his hotel and collapsed on the bed in disbelief as the returns came in. When he awakened a few hours later, Trump’s victory was assured, and Castro’s future was uncertain.

The next day, he phoned his wife, Erica, to say they would be returning home to San Antonio, perhaps where he would run for something. But a race for governor of Texas in 2018 never held much appeal.

Castro’s plan to seek the White House took shape swiftly, interviews with him and allies suggest.

He had experienced the national limelight, relishing the “rising star” label after being selected by Obama to deliver the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.

Castro traveled widely at HUD and has continued to do so, visiting more than 40 states at last count. And he’d landed on a list of finalists to become Clinton’s 2016 running mate, endured the vetting and even taken a physical. He slid down in the order when the Clinton campaign concluded that a Latino on the ticket was unneeded as a rallying tool given Trump’s vilification of Hispanic immigrants.

In weighing a candidacy, it seemed a good bet to Castro that voters would be weary of a mercurial president buffeted by investigations and intent on selecting a replacement who looked to be fundamentally honest.

He also calculated, rightly or wrongly, that voters would be in the market for a candidate from a younger generation. Early on, he took stock of Democrats who’d won the White House in their 40s: John F. Kennedy (43); Bill Clinton (46) and Obama (47).

In a party riven by feuding between Clinton backers and devotees of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Castro saw himself appealing to both camps.

He also considered what his candidacy might do for Democrats’ hopes of turning Texas into a blue state.

Since last year, he has talked over his future with allies and mentors, among them Henry Cisneros who, like Castro, was a San Antonio mayor and HUD chief. He spoke with consultants, including David Axelrod, who was Obama’s White House political chief, and Jeremy Bird, a principal organizer of Obama’s campaigns.

But Castro can point to no senior party leaders he relies on. Brother Joaquin remains his closest political adviser.

On three occasions he convened supporters to talk about his future. In August 2017, shortly after starting his Opportunity First PAC, he held the first meeting, describing briefly what he had in mind. In a second meeting a year later, he got more specific about where he saw himself in a 2020 field.

If there were doubts about running, they were erased by Democrats’ success in recapturing the U.S. House in November’s midterm election, with a net gain of 43 seats — some of them won by candidates Castro supported during his travels last year.

“I picked up on what people were thinking, and I sensed that this race is wide open,” Castro said.

Last month, some 20 potential funders for Castro gathered at a downtown San Antonio law office, invited by Houston lawyer Scott Atlas, who is likely to have a key post in the campaign.

Candidates’ viability will be measured early by their capacity to rake in cash, and Castro’s vow to forgo PAC contributions could complicate that task. But he left the meeting confident, he says, that his campaign can compete in the money chase.

“A lot of people who have supported me for a long time are eager to activate their networks to raise money,” he said.

In Iowa, where voters seem loath to take chances with stakes so high, Castro had to make the case that he can survive absent labor union cash and other big checks.

“There is so much on the line,” Tony Currin, 48, a Teamsters Union member from Iowa City, said pleadingly to Castro. “My vote is precious, and I’ve been burned by people who are willing to die on the cross.”

“To put it in my own language,” Castro responded, “you’re asking if I’m taking a knife to a gunfight.”

Castro added: “There are a lot of other challenges, but the problem is not going to be money.”

A breakthrough scenario?

Since the last quarter of the 20th century, success in the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary eight days later has been the sure path to success. Not winning or placing near the top in those two states has forced many from both parties to abandon their races, bereft of donor support.

Castro’s allies believe that expectations might have changed in the era of Trump. Castro speaks confidently about contending in the early going. But supporters pin their hopes on the front-loaded primary schedule.

Caucuses in Nevada, where Hispanics make up 28 percent of the population, follow New Hampshire. Then, after the South Carolina primary, Texas and California, home to more than half the nation’s Latinos, are among the nine states expected to have Super Tuesday primaries on March 3.

Jeremy Bird, for one, believes the clout of Iowa could be diminished this cycle by the volume of candidates dividing support. He broke down where Castro might fit in the competition.

“He will be in the younger, more outsider category, perhaps the only Latino, somebody who has been a mayor, somebody who has the benefit of not being from a blue, coastal state. And, I think, he is someone with a lot of personal characteristics that are unique in the field,” said Bird, who leads a project to train campaign staff for 2020.

“I think he is somebody who has the potential to break out,” he added.

Bird’s advice? “He needs to attract and retain high-level talent at the national level and in states that matter early in the process. And he needs to hone his message. Voters need to know clearly what he stands for and why he is running.”

At Stanford University, where the Castro brothers spent their undergraduate years, political science professor Luis Fraga, a Texas native, counseled them and enlisted them in his research.

Fraga, now director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, asserted that the brothers’ “sophisticated understanding of politics” surpassed that of any of his students in over three decades.

Fraga, who plans to be in San Antonio for the announcement, said: “I always knew that they would go back home and use it as a base to enter office and use their offices as a way to extend opportunities like the opportunities provided to them.”

Referring to Julián, Fraga said: “He was very serious and very mature and clearly understood that strategy is extremely important in achieving both elected and policy success.”

In December, a tracking poll of 2,800 Latinos around the country pointed to the impact Castro’s candidacy could have on Latino turnout in 2020.

The survey, sponsored by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), found that two-thirds of Latino voters said they would be more likely to vote Democratic if a Latino was on the ballot.

Start of the digital campaign

Before heading to New Hampshire next week, Castro plans to travel on Sunday to Puerto Rico to meet with influential Hispanics at a gathering sponsored by the Democratic-aligned Latino Victory Fund.

“It’s aspirational for our communities and our allies to see someone like him,” said Cristobal Alex, president of Latino Victory Fund. “I think people and (money) bundlers are going to take him under their wings.”

In interviews, Castro described the highly digital campaign he will run. Last year, his Opportunity First PAC made its biggest expenditures to digital companies, including $127,000 to the company headed by Joe Rospars, who was chief digital strategist in Obama’s presidential campaigns and worked on Bernie Sanders’ behalf in 2016.

Castro said that Democrats in Iowa and elsewhere can expect to see ads online asking them to take part in his campaign and raise money.

“Every aspect of the campaign, from communications to organizing to fundraising, runs through digital media these days,” he said.

Little has changed during Castro’s planning other than the emergence of O’Rourke. The former El Paso congressman’s adroit use of Facebook and his gaudy fundraising hauls last year ($38 million in a single quarter) may be a factor in his leapfrogging other potential candidates in recent polls.

Castro gets questions about O’Rourke wherever he goes. “Is it Julián’s time or is it Beto’s time?” he was asked at a radio station in San Antonio this week

Castro asserted that neither O’Rourke’s entry or that of any other contestant will alter the course of his pursuit.

“It’s not going to change what I do. That’s why I made the decision to jump in on my own timeline - early. I’m not concerned about what other people are going to do,” he said on the eve of his declaration.

“I’m going to articulate a strong positive vision for the country and give people something to believe in, not just to be against. I know who I have to reach and how I want it to resonate. And we’re going to do that,” he said.

blambrecht@express-news.net