Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke drew a crowd of supporters in Nashville Sunday, largely focusing on immigration as he vowed to undo current federal policies on asylum seekers and pitched his ability to appeal to red state voters.

The former Texas congressman is spending two days in Nashville, drawing hundreds for a rally at Marathon Music Works on Sunday before he is scheduled to tour a food bank and take part in a roundtable on immigration Monday.

"Like you, until recently, I thought I lived in a state that was too red to count," O'Rourke told the crowd, recalling his bid for U.S. Senate last year when he lost against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in a tight, highly contested race that generated record midterm turnout, specifically among young voters.

O'Rourke, from the border town of El Paso, has made immigration reform a primary theme of his campaign for president. As he did Sunday, O'Rourke has frequently slammed President Donald Trump's policies of detaining migrants at the southern border in conditions that advocates and immigrants alike have reported to be deplorable.

He noted the indirect effects of Trump's 2017 "Muslim ban," an executive order that temporarily restricted and limited the number of refugees who could enter the United States from Muslim countries.

He pledged to make citizens the youth recipients of the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, release asylum seekers from federal detention facilities, ensure that no immigrant children are again placed in cages and to "invest in solutions" in Central American countries to prevent others from feeling they must make an illegal, dangerous trek to the United States.

"I might expect to hear a human being described as an infestation based on their race or their ethnicity sometime during the Third Reich," O'Rourke said as he stood not on the stage but on a small platform in the middle of the venue.

O'Rourke visit to Tennessee comes as he works to re-emerge as viable contender

O'Rourke's stop in Nashville comes as his support has slowed since his presidential campaign announcement in March, prompting questions about whether he can once again gain traction in the crowded Democratic field.

He stayed afterward to take photos with each of the hundreds of supporters who waited in line.

"I think that Tennessee and Nashville are places that are, frankly, taken for granted by Democrats or written off altogether," O'Rourke told The Tennessean after the rally.

"They may not play as prominently in the first few states that are helping to select the nominee, but I think everyone here should have a seat at the table. And the only way that’s possible is to actually show up and personally be here."

O'Rourke, the third Democratic presidential candidate to visit Nashville this year, said he would be making a future trip to Memphis.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar have also come to Music City in recent weeks, and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is set to visit later this month.

Among the supporters who came to O'Rourke's Sunday event was Kerrie Green of Murfreesboro, who attended with her middle school-age daughter, Lily.

Lily handed O'Rourke a cat-themed gift bag that contained homemade T-shirts she had crafted for his children.

"We love Beto, because we think he's probably the most sincere politician we've had in a long time outside of Barack," Green said, describing his sincerity "you just know" from watching him.

"I think he has the ability to win over independents and Republicans in a way that other Democrats don't because they're too progressive," Green said of her reason for choosing O'Rourke as her first pick.

Nick Renfroe, a 20-year-old senior at Belmont University, stood outside in the hot sun with his mother, Charnita Renfroe, to hear O'Rourke.

The Belmont student is also an associate minister at Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church, one of Nashville's largest African-American congregations.

"He's a candidate that most young people can relate to," Renfroe said. "His age, his background. He's more hip. He's more youthful."

Renfroe said he believes O'Rourke would "represent the interests" of people of color.

Charnita Renfroe, who describes herself as an independent who voted twice for George W. Bush, twice for Barack Obama and in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, said she was convinced to support O'Rourke after hearing him speak on Sunday.

O'Rourke was in New Orleans earlier in the weekend after spending three days campaigning in Iowa, his first stop following a June 26 debate where his performance did not appear to boost O'Rourke's polling numbers.

A week after the debate, a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll found that O'Rourke failed to reach 1% among Iowa voters, falling from 2% a month earlier. The recent poll had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

The rally launched an hour earlier with Nashville country-rock artists Raelyn Nelson Band and Elizabeth Cook.

Among the Nashville elected Democrats attending the rally were state Rep. Darren Jernigan, Vice Mayor Jim Shulman, and Metro council members Sharon Hurt, Erica Gilmore and Brenda Haywood.

On Monday, O'Rourke is scheduled to tour Second Harvest Food Bank before taking part in a roundtable on immigration with TIRRC Votes, the political arm of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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