Beto O’Rourke has traveled to 14 states and 91 cities, zigzagging across the country in a breathtaking series of minivans, coffee shops, and rallies. But back at his El Paso headquarters, his presidential campaign is running behind.

More than a month after she was brought on, O’Rourke campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, a big-name hire from the upper echelons of Obamaworld, has yet to start on the campaign full time. That’s left O’Rourke’s operation in El Paso in a kind of holding pattern, according to interviews with nearly a dozen people inside or close to the operation, while O’Malley Dillon spends part of her time wrapping things up at her Democratic strategy firm in Washington. Campaign staffers have been left waiting to see how she will steer the campaign when she arrives in Texas in early May.

As the campaign sees it, this is all part of a natural process: O’Rourke is an unconventional candidate running an unconventional campaign. Success, aides say, is defined more by how many people O’Rourke meets than by how tight of a ship he’s running back home.

The operation in El Paso is still a campaign in transition. The campaign has yet to publicly hire a communications director, a key senior role that it has been trying to fill for weeks. In headquarters, a friend and former colleague of O’Malley Dillon’s, Mitch Stewart, has taken on a temporary role to make sure the operation remains steady. And last week, the departure of two top aides from O’Rourke’s Senate race, Becky Bond and Zack Malitz, reflected a campaign still figuring itself out.



In some key early states, campaign staffers are watching El Paso with confusion. Among O’Rourke aides and supporters inside and outside the headquarters, “I don’t really know” is a common answer to questions about campaign roles, strategy, and specifics.

O’Rourke’s campaign says O’Malley Dillon is already in charge and active daily in overseeing campaign operations while continuing to work at her firm in Washington. She has not yet moved to El Paso in part because her three young children are finishing the school year on the East Coast.

“We're excited and fortunate that Jen O'Malley Dillon has fully invested her incredible leadership, experience, and creativity into managing our grassroots campaign,” said campaign spokesperson Chris Evans.

Still, by the standards of many of the Democratic field’s most established presidential campaigns, O’Rourke’s campaign is operating in a different political universe.

O’Rourke has mapped the loose, frenetic style of his failed Texas Senate campaign — and his successful run for Congress before that — onto a national stage. While he has gone to key early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, he has also traveled to states where few other candidates have — including several days spent driving around Virginia; a road trip through Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan; and a four-day stint in California.

O’Rourke has done little national media since launching his campaign, including avoiding a CNN town hall — a major national stage that has hosted most Democratic candidates and boosted Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the national polls. (O'Rourke did appear on MSNBC on Monday to talk about his new climate plan.)

That strategy is evidence of a campaign, and a candidate, measuring success differently than Washington standards, aides say — in part by the pace and frequency of campaign stops and the number of questions taken by voters, not polling surges, national moments, and message tests. Aides say they are focused on getting O’Rourke personally in front of many voters as possible, especially in unconventional venues.