Reps. Julian Castro and Beto O’Rourke have cast each other as nonfactors in their decisions whether to run. But Castro has moved aggressively to climb out from under O’Rourke’s shadow. | Richard W. Rodriguez/AP Photo 2020 elections O'Rourke and Castro on collision course in Texas Julián Castro was the Democratic up-and-comer from Texas to watch — until Beto came along.

The Democratic Party’s dream of a resurgence in Texas has long run squarely through San Antonio and the Castro brothers — Joaquin, the third-term congressman, and Julián, the city’s ambitious former mayor.

But that was before Beto O’Rourke catapulted himself into the party’s national consciousness this year.


Now, O’Rourke and Julián Castro are both inching toward presidential campaigns, an unlikely bounty for Texas Democrats accustomed to near-irrelevance at the statewide and national levels. O’Rourke and Castro would likely run on different platforms and rely on different donors, limiting the likelihood of direct combat.

But assuming they both run and don’t flame out, the presence of the two Texans in the race would test the allegiances of state Democrats in a way that could be a significant factor in the fight for the nomination. Texas will hold its primary relatively early in the 2020 calendar, timing that will likely make the diverse and delegate-rich state a big prize in a competitive contest.

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Until now, the two have operated worlds apart despite their home-state ties. In San Antonio, Castro cultivated a local following while steeping himself in policy and traditional fundraising practices. Five hundred miles and one time zone to the west in El Paso, O’Rourke became an instant sensation with his charismatic, closer-than-expected U.S. Senate run and a national following of small-dollar donors.

“They’re not only from two different parts of Texas, they’re from two different parts of the country,” said Colin Strother, a Texas Democratic strategist who has advised Castro in previous campaigns. “This idea that there’s a finite constituency that they’re going to chop up, I just don’t see it … I see them as two completely different types of candidates.”

Castro and O’Rourke have cast each other as nonfactors in their decisions whether to run. But Castro has moved aggressively to climb out from under O’Rourke’s shadow. Earlier this month, he opened an exploratory committee and is expected to formally announce his campaign in January.

The Castro twins hosted dozens of donors for breakfast in Texas on Dec. 19. A source connected to the event described it as an organizational meeting for donors and said the 70-plus attendees were a mix of business leaders, lawyers, local officials and activists, party officials, former bundlers and Castro loyalists.

But the uphill climb facing Castro has been exacerbated by O’Rourke’s attention-grabbing run against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. O’Rourke is now soaring in early 2020 polls, often running behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, while Castro is barely a blip on the national landscape.

Even in Texas, the last time Castro appeared in a University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, when he was still mayor of San Antonio in 2013, a majority of Democrats statewide did not know him well enough to form an opinion of him. In the midst of a supercharged Senate race five years later, O’Rourke’s favorability rating among Texas Democrats hit 93 percent.

Jeff Roe, who was Cruz’s chief strategist, said after the November election that Democrats “don’t have anyone of [O’Rourke’s] caliber on the national stage.”

Castro, on the other hand, is “the Bobby Jindal of the Democrat cycle,” Roe said. “He’s pound cake. He’ll run, he’ll raise like $3.2 million, he’ll be out by August and they’ll recruit him to run against [Republican Sen. John] Cornyn” in 2020.

Castro donors are optimistic he'll surge once he officially launches and begins campaigning. “I don’t think anybody knew who President Obama was until people heard him speak and he started to get some media coverage,” said one donor who pledged a maximum $2,700 contribution at the breakfast event.

Castro could hardly have foreseen O’Rourke’s rise. Long viewed by Democratic Party activists and donors as an emerging star in Texas, Castro was a significant surrogate for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign and made her shortlist for vice president, while O’Rourke served in relative anonymity as a backbench member of the House minority.

But in a cruelty of political timing, the Castros themselves may have helped open a door for O’Rourke. Many Democrats were courting Joaquin to run for U.S. Senate, and had he opposed O’Rourke in the primary, his appeal in heavily Latino swaths of the state — areas where O’Rourke struggled — might have stamped out O’Rourke.

Matt Angle, a veteran Democratic strategist and director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic research and communications PAC, said O’Rourke might still have prevailed. But he said, “He would have had a harder time in the primary, no question about it.”

“Had either one of the Castros indicated early on that they were running for that Senate race, my guess is that [O’Rourke] would have had to really check his hole card,” he said.

But Castro demurred, and O’Rourke took off. And the Castros campaigned vigorously for him.

“Beto proved a lot of times, the prize goes to the bull,” Angle said. “He jumped in, he had a plan, and he was willing to do things unconventionally and smartly, and he really reset the Democratic base in Texas.”

After O’Rourke caught his spark, said Strother, “Beto became the campfire that [Texas Democrats] all huddled around. And through that process, a lot of people fell in love with Beto.”

The emergence of two homegrown presidential contenders has been a godsend for Texas Democrats. While O’Rourke fell short in his bid to unseat Cruz, his coattails were credited with lifting at least two Democrats to victory over House Republican incumbents. The prospect of two Democratic contenders drawing attention and money to the state has party organizers overjoyed.

“It’s a problem I don’t mind having, you know?” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said of a potential field including Castro and O’Rourke. “I think they both have national visibility, they’re both very well respected. They’re both considered progressives, their politics probably mirror each other. They both excite a large part of the Democratic base.”

Despite hailing from the same state, O’Rourke and Castro have never competed for donors or voter support. O’Rourke represents a West Texas district that is closer to California than to San Antonio, Castro’s base of support. O’Rourke has focused heavily on immigration-related issues from his hometown along the U.S.-Mexico border, while Castro could hold the distinction of being the only Latino candidate in a wide-open field.

Lydia Camarillo, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a Texas-based Latino voter participation group, said that ever since George W. Bush defeated the state’s last Democratic governor, Ann Richards, in 1994, “there’s been a sense of, ‘we’re never going to recoup.’ There has been little money, or any money, invested in Texas to mobilize the vote. … There has been little to no money spent building the infrastructure.”

O’Rourke and Castro are friendly but not especially close, Democrats familiar with them say, having risen in politics in geographically distant parts of the state. Castro has said that O’Rourke is not a factor in his deliberations. And the outgoing Texas congressman didn’t come up during the donor breakfast, according to Scott Atlas, a Houston attorney who organized the event.

Atlas donated $1,500 to O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign but is “all in” for Castro 2020. “Beto has not declared, and independently, I’ve made the decision that I’m going to support Julián, obviously assuming he decides to run,” he said. “I think he’d make a terrific president.”

If both Castro and O’Rourke run, Texas likely won’t be the only state with more than one candidate vying for the Democratic nomination. Several Californians are mulling campaigns, including Sen. Kamala Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

On Sunday, Castro was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if there is enough room for both him and O’Rourke in the race.

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Castro said.

He called O’Rourke a “very talented, very impressive guy.” But he said, “I think that there are probably going to be 20 people up on that first debate stage.”

