Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 presidential campaign announced today that Beto will give a special address to the nation in Texas tomorrow. The once rising star in the Democratic party is seeking to reset his campaign. Again.
Garrett Haake reports at NBC News:
Beto O’Rourke to deliver campaign reset speech ThursdayFormer Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke plans to deliver his first major, written address on Thursday, offering a reset of his presidential campaign, a new focus and a fresh strategy for going forward in the wake of a mass shooting in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso that killed 22 people last week.O’Rourke will recommit to holding President Trump accountable for the state of the country — and focus on the stakes of removing a president from office whom he has explicitly linked to the deaths of fellow El Pasoans, according to a senior campaign official.He’ll focus heavily on three key issues: racism, white supremacy and guns — and plans to propose what the campaign calls “new, bold solutions.”O’Rourke also plans to call on other candidates, elected officials and members of the media to keep the stakes of this race in mind. The former congressman’s frustration at the political media’s coverage of Trump boiled over last week, in a moment that went viral and drew praise from many Democrats for his raw, emotional response.
This sounds pretty important:
Of course, this is the second time that Beto has tried to “reset” his campaign, and the second time Garrett Haake of NBC News has reported on it.
The first time was on May 15th:
O’Rourke, seeking a reset, reaches out to national DemocratsBeto O’Rourke is asking for a second chance to make a first impression.After a rocky rollout — punctuated by a Vanity Fair profile in which he was quoted saying he was “born” to be in the 2020 presidential race — the former Texas congressman imposed on himself a period of major-media and fundraising abstinence while he held scores of town hall meetings in early caucus and primary states.It didn’t seem to help. Dismissing him as thin on substance, The New Republic mocked his “profound emptiness” and Politico concluded that he had “a long history of failing upward.” He’s watched his national poll numbers dwindle — from a high of 12 percent in a Quinnipiac survey in late March to 5 percent in the same survey a month later — and he’s been at 3 percent in several other recent polls.But with a round of national TV interviews, fresh additions to his campaign team and a more substantial platform beginning to take shape, O’Rourke will now be watched closely by Democratic insiders to see if his soft re-launch — Beto 2.0 — can propel him back into the forefront of the national conversation.
According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, Beto O’Rourke is currently polling at 1.5 percent in New Hampshire. Two of the polls which make up that average have him at zero.
According to a Monmouth University poll from August 8th, Beto is polling at less than one percent in Iowa.
The “major address” tomorrow will likely be the death rattle of a campaign which should have closed shop weeks ago.
Beto is finished and no one has the heart to tell him.
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