Flanked by conga drums and keyboards at the Hispanicize conference in Miami in April, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former mayor of San Antonio Julián Castro wasn’t surrounded by the trappings of a typical presidential campaign. But he sure sounded like a 2020 candidate, delivering a first draft of a stump speech that will soon get a hearing in the state that holds the first caucus of the presidential campaign. He will be making his first trip to Iowa on June 23, Castro told The Intercept in an interview, as the featured speaker at a Linn County Democrats fundraising event for Iowa candidates. Later that day, he’ll appear at a rally for Flip It Iowa, a grassroots organization that works to flip seats from Republican to Democrat. The next day, he’ll meet with state legislative leaders and speak to the Iowa Brown and Black Forum organizers. He said he has also reached out to the College and Young Democrats of Iowa for a meeting. While some Democrats contend that they’re only focused on this November, others, like Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., have signaled their intention to run in 2020 by visiting Iowa — a state to which certain predictive qualities are ascribed.

Wayne Ford, one of the co-founders of the Iowa Brown and Black Forum, recently told The Intercept that he has already heard from two major prospective 2020 candidates: Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. — suggesting that they, too, are laying the groundwork for a 2020 campaign. (In 2016, the forum hosted all three of the Democratic primary candidates.) Although Castro won’t go as far as confirming his intention to run, he has no problem discussing his not-exactly-hypothetical candidacy. “If I decide to become a candidate, I’m going to offer a positive vision for the future,” Castro told The Intercept. Describing his prospective campaign as an investment in people, Castro listed his priorities, including pre-K for every 4-year-old, affordable education, and an inclusive focus on all communities, both rural and urban. Castro feels strongly that a positive vision for the country is needed to beat Donald Trump, and that a scorched earth, anti-Trump message is insufficient. That vision includes so-called bread and butter concerns beyond what are described, at times pejoratively, as “identity issues.” In fact, Castro and his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, tend to downplay what it would mean to be the Mexican-American candidate in the race, noting that immigration, jobs, and education are popular priorities among all American families. “Julián talks about those common experiences, struggles, and challenges people face in a way that transcends the particulars of people’s background,” his brother said. But that doesn’t stop his team from sharing big dreams about how a Mexican-American candidate might play in a state where nearly 40 percent of the population is Latino. Some in Castro’s orbit believe that Texas may be in play in 2020 — partly because of demographic shifts in the increasingly nonwhite state. For years, pollsters have found that Latinos turn out when there are Latinos on the ballot — particularly if their names are recognizably Latin. The hope, then, is that Castro might fare especially well in Southwestern states with large Latino populations, thereby radically changing the national electoral calculus. His inner circle believes that traditional swing states may be replaced by new swing states like Arizona and Texas, which were closer electoral contests than Iowa and almost as close as Ohio in 2016. Democrats could win in 2020 without Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania if Texas and Arizona were to go blue. Castro, like many national Democrats, believes that Midwestern swing states are winnable in 2020. But as Democrats push harder to win and turn out the Latino vote, some new research suggests that, at least in some contexts, these efforts may further depress white support, much like what happened to Democrats after the civil rights movement. “This pattern, I find, is driven by the effects that such information has on the racial prototypes associated with each party,” writes Mara Cecilia Ostfeld in the journal Political Behavior. “All together, these findings point to a new phase of racial realignment in the American political system.” Should he make his run official, Castro already has the endorsement of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a senior member of congress who is confident about Castro’s ability to turn out Latino voters. “I absolutely would support him,” said Cleaver, the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and a Texas native. “I actually believe now that had he been on the ticket, we would have won the presidency. We would have won Texas, possibly — had a greater chance in Arizona. I don’t think there’s any question he would have energized the Latino turnout to the point that the electoral votes would have gone to Clinton as well as the popular vote. Julian is a perfect person for the campaign and the presidency.” But Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO, cautioned against a presumption that a Hispanic candidate is an automatic win with Latinos. He said ethnic pride is real, but it’s not a be-all and end-all. “The worst thing Julian Castro can say is: ‘I have the Latino vote in the bag because of my last name and because I was mayor of San Antonio,’” Vargas said, after learning of Castro’s designs in Southwestern states. “The only way that materializes is if there is significant investment in Latino voter turnout in those states. We just have not seen it at the level that you need for that level of statewide impact.” Billy Vassiliadis, Nevada’s most influential political consultant and a longtime Harry Reid adviser, said Castro is an intriguing candidate for the Southwest — especially at a time when Democrats are holding out hope that another young, appealing Barack Obama-like figure might be just over the horizon. “A lot of us would jump on the first candidate that caught fire just to beat Trump,” he said. But he’s still skeptical about Texas. “I fear it’s unrequited love,” he said of Democrats eyeing the Lone Star State. “They haven’t had a Democratic governor since Ann Richards,” whose term ended in 1995. Vassiliadis hasn’t written off the possibility of a Castro win, but he’s looking to other Southwestern elections, like the race to fill Sen. Jeff Flake’s Arizona seat, as predictive of Castro’s odds: “I hope Arizona isn’t the hopeless siren’s call for Democrats,” he said. But if Texans aren’t yet true-blue, they aren’t in the bag for Trump’s brand of conservatism either. “Trump doesn’t sell well in Texas,” said Joaquin Castro. “Even though the state leans conservative, they don’t really like brash obnoxiousness in Texas.” It’s possible, then, that Castro has a chance.



Julián Castro, center, attends a reception for Hispanic Heritage Month in the East Room of the White House on Oct. 12, 2016. Photo: Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images