Beto O’Rourke speaks at his 2020 presidential campaign kickoff rally in downtown El Paso, Texas, on Saturday. | Tamir Kalifa for POLITICO 2020 elections O’Rourke rails against ‘unprecedented concentration of wealth and power’ at kickoff rally In his first formal stump speech, the former Texas congressman channels Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

EL PASO, Texas — Beto O’Rourke, christening his presidential campaign at a boisterous rally in his hometown on Saturday, cast himself as a crusader against moneyed interests that he said have corrupted America’s democracy and a president he accused of capitalizing on politics of “fear and division.”

In what could amount to his maiden stump speech — delivered at the first large-scale, structured event of his nascent campaign — O’Rourke’s populist progressive framing evoked similar appeals from rivals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.


“This extraordinary, unprecedented concentration of wealth and power and privilege must be broken apart,” the former Texas congressman said to cheers, “and opportunity must be shared with all.”

Lamenting economic inequality, a lack of universal health care and the scourge of climate change, O’Rourke called the challenges confronting America “the greatest of our lifetimes.” And he said that if elected, he would sign a new voting rights act, end gerrymandering and institute nationwide, automatic same-day voter registration.

“This is our moment of truth,” O’Rourke said, “and we cannot be found wanting.”

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The address was billed as the first of three kickoff rallies in Texas, with events later Saturday in Houston and Austin. Though O’Rourke announced his candidacy earlier this month — climbing on to tables and café countertops in cramped venues as he sprinted across eight states — his appearance in El Paso was orchestrated to introduce O’Rourke to the Democratic electorate from a more presidential perch.

Speaking against the backdrop of an archway blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border, O’Rourke denounced a political system in which “unrestrained money and influence has warped the priorities of this country” and “corrupted our democracy.”

“For too long in this country, the powerful have maintained their privilege at the expense of the powerless,” O’Rourke said. “They have used fear and division in the same way that our current president uses fear and division, based on the differences between us of race, of ethnicity, of geography or religion to keep us apart, to make us angry, to make us afraid of ourselves and of one another.”

As the crowd chanted “Beto, Beto!” and waved black-and-white signs reading “Viva Beto” and “Beto for President,” O’Rourke said, “This is a campaign for America.”

The rally filled an intersection and part of a block of a historic thoroughfare in El Paso’s downtown. Police officers unofficially estimated the crowd at about 1,000 to 2,000 people, while O’Rourke’s campaign put the number at more than 6,000.

Beto and Amy O’Rourke pose for photos with supporters in El Paso on Saturday. | Tamir Kalifa for POLITICO

O’Rourke’s campaign, citing police in Houston, said some 10,500 people were on hand for his rally at Texas Southern University, where O’Rourke echoed many of the morning’s themes. Standing in front of a large American flag, he vowed to run a campaign to “bring people together” regardless of political affiliation.

In El Paso, while O’Rourke rarely mentioned President Donald Trump by name, he repeatedly invoked the policies and rhetoric of the Republican president, especially on immigration. Standing just blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border — where scores of asylum-seekers were being held under an overpass — O’Rourke pointed to “those who are just three or four blocks from here, detained under the international bridge that connects us with Mexico behind chain-link fence and barbed wire. … They are our fellow human beings.”

He called for an end to “these love affairs with dictators and strong men all around the world” and urged the United States to refocus its foreign policy to “reprioritize this hemisphere — those countries and people who are literally connected to us by land.”

“We can try to solve the problems of Central America here at our front door, at the Texas-Mexico border,” O’Rourke said. “Or we can invest in the opportunities to help the people of Central America where they are at home.”

The border — and the charged subject of immigration — has provided O’Rourke his clearest opening to confront Trump. The former Texas congressman hails from the heavily Democratic border city that shares a culture — and skyline — with Juárez, Mexico.

Before announcing his presidential campaign, O’Rourke drew thousands of supporters to a February protest rally countering Trump’s visit to the city and the president's call for funding for a border wall. And O’Rourke has gone further than many of his Democratic competitors on the issue, saying he would remove existing border barriers along the Rio Grande in El Paso.

But in a sweeping address on Saturday, O’Rourke also called for expanding health care access, paying teachers more, strengthening labor unions, addressing climate change, banning workplace discrimination and enacting paid family leave. He called for decriminalizing marijuana and expunging the records of those arrested for possessing the drug. He called for expanding services for veterans and ending the country’s involvement in foreign wars.

“Whatever our differences — where you live, who you love, to whom you pray, for whom you voted in the last election, let those differences not define us or divide us at this moment,” O’Rourke said. “Let’s agree going forward, before we are anything else, we are Americans first.”

O'Rourke speaks at Texas Southern University in Houston on Saturday. | Tamir Kalifa for POLITICO

O’Rourke held his Texas debut one day before the end of the first fundraising quarter of the year, marrying his homecoming rally to a furious online organizing effort. The campaign coordinated more than 1,000 viewing parties throughout the United States, while warning supporters that despite the staggering $6.1 million O’Rourke raised in the first 24 hours of his campaign — surpassing every other candidate and his advisers’ expectations — he was still running from behind.

“Beto is playing catch up to other candidates with more campaign funds,” the campaign emailed supporters on Friday. “Some of our opponents started with millions of dollars from past campaigns. Plus Beto has had a lot less time to fundraise since we launched so recently. Still, we'll be compared to other candidates for president in these reports.”

O’Rourke is beginning his campaign far behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Sanders (I-Vt.) in early polls and is running about even with Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Warren (D-Mass.), according to Morning Consult.

But unconstrained by public office or any other job, O’Rourke is campaigning at a frenetic pace. After his Texas rallies, he plans to speak at the progressive We the People summit in Washington on Monday and at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference the next day in New York. He will then return to Iowa for nearly two dozen events over four days in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

In El Paso — and in Houston and Austin — O’Rourke sought to reinvigorate Texas Democrats he first captivated in his closer-than-expected loss to Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas’ Senate race last year. O’Rourke is widely popular among Democrats in Texas but he has acknowledged he will have to compete hard in the state in 2020. The Democratic primary includes another Texan, Julián Castro, and Harris, among other contenders, has been seeking to make inroads in the Super Tuesday state.

O’Rourke has put El Paso, a West Texas city of about 680,000 people, at the center of his presidential campaign, routinely lacing his remarks with references to his experiences in the border city.

Speaking Saturday a short walk from his home, O’Rourke found an audience who could finish his line when he said, as he has many times: “We are safe not despite the fact that we are a city of immigrants and asylum-seekers. We are safe because we are a city of immigrants and asylum-seekers.”

He added, “We have learned not to fear our differences, but to respect and embrace them.”