Report: Beto O'Rourke to announce Thursday he's running for president

(Image credit: Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images)

last updated 14 March 2019

Beto O'Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso, is expected to formally announce on Thursday that he is running for president in 2020, KTSM reports.

O'Rourke shared the news with KTSM, a television station in El Paso, via text on Wednesday afternoon. The Democrat rose to national prominence last year during his run for Senate against Republican Ted Cruz, a race he narrowly lost.

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When asked if he is a progressive, O'Rourke was careful in his answer. "I leave that to other people," he said. "I'm not into the labels. My sense in traveling Texas for the past two years, my sense is that people really aren't into them, either." Read the entire Vanity Fair interview to learn about O'Rourke's relationship with his late father, a DUI arrest, his family's opinion on a presidential run, and more.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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