Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, said that he and his wife haven’t decided yet whether he will run for president in 2020, a reversal from when he claimed earlier this month, amid a Senate campaign, that he would “not be a candidate for president in 2020.”
“Amy and I made a decision not to rule anything out,” O’Rourke said following a town hall meeting, according to the Texas Tribune. “The best advice I received from people who’ve run for, and won — and run for, and lost — elections like this, is: Don’t make any decisions about anything until you’ve had some time to hang with your family and just be human. And so I am following that advice.”
But O’Rourke’s wife, Amy, was cautious about the “scary” possibility, and she admitted that she and her husband had not been in touch with political strategists.
“To me that just seems like you have to give up so much,” Amy O’Rourke said after the town hall, the Washington Post reports. “I don’t know if this is a line that I or we really want to cross.”
Beto O’Rourke lost his Senate race against incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Nov. 6, but since then there have been calls for him to run for president in 2020.
Other potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates being tossed around the rumor mill include Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
