Beto O’Rourke is adamant he won’t run for the Senate if his presidential bid fails.
When the 2020 presidential candidate was pressed Thursday on whether he would drop out and launch a Senate bid, the former Texas congressman said no circumstances would lead him to get into that race.
“You know the question’s going to keep coming up,” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell told O’Rourke on Thursday, “this question of what about dropping out of this presidential race and taking up the race for the Senate.”
“I’m running for president, and I’m taking this fight directly to Donald Trump,” O’Rourke said.
O’Donnell then asked O’Rourke if he had Dec. 9, the deadline to file for the Senate Democratic primary in Texas, flagged in his calendar.
“No,” O’Rourke said. “I will not in any scenario run for the United States Senate. I’m running for president. I’m running for this country. I’m taking this fight directly to Donald Trump, and that is what I am exclusively focused on doing right now.”
The remarks echoed those O’Rourke made earlier in the day when he relaunched his presidential campaign for a second time.
“There’s some part of me, a big part of me, that wants to stay here,” O’Rourke said in a speech from his hometown of El Paso on Thursday. “I love El Paso. There have even been some who have suggested I stay in Texas and run for Senate. But that would not be good enough for this community. That would not be good enough for El Paso. That would not be good enough for this country.”
O’Rourke is likely to keep facing questions about whether he is better suited to run for Senate as he struggles to recapture the viral success he had in the early days of his campaign. He nearly defeated Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2018 midterm elections, losing to the incumbent by less than 3% in the red state.
