Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia-based political analyst behind Sabato’s Crystal Ball, predicted a 2020 presidential run for defeated Texas Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
“Win or lose, @BetoORourke may be drafted to run for the D POTUS nomination,” Sabato tweeted Tuesday before the Texas Senate race was called for Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. “No one else in the D field seems to come close to matching his appeal to the grassroots.”
“Suppose @BetoORourke wins. Obama only had 4 years in Senate,” he added. “Suppose @BetoORourke loses. There was another guy who lost a Senate race and was elected President two years later. A fellow named Abraham Lincoln.”
Win or lose, @BetoORourke may be drafted to run for the D POTUS nomination. No one else in the D field seems to come close to matching his appeal to the grassroots.
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) November 7, 2018
Suppose @BetoORourke wins. Obama only had 4 years in Senate. Suppose @BetoORourke loses. There was another guy who lost a Senate race and was elected President two years later. A fellow named Abraham Lincoln. https://t.co/lcKoMJy85Z
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) November 7, 2018
O’Rourke, who has served Texas’ 16th Congressional District since 2013, has repeatedly denied having any interest in launching a presidential bid in the near future.
“I will not be a candidate for president in 2020,” he said in an interview in Houston, Texas, that aired on MSNBC Monday. “That’s I think as definitive as those sentences get.”
O’Rourke said in an interview Sunday with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the impact on his family was one of the reasons he was not considering running for higher office just yet.
“We’ve spent the better part of the last two years not with each other, missing birthdays, and anniversaries, and time together. Our family could not survive more of that. We need to be together,” he said. “I’m saying that if elected to the Senate I’ll serve every day of that six-year term. I’m not looking at 2020, and in fact, I’m completely ruling that out. I’m not going to do that. Win or lose, I’m not running in 2020.”
