1915
O'Rourke married Amy Hoover Sanders, the daughter of Louann and Bill Sanders, at her parents' ranch in Lamy, New Mexico, near Santa Fe, on September 24, 2005. Bill Sanders is a real estate developer who previously dated O'Rourke's mother and introduced her to O'Rourke's father. The couple and their three children live in El Paso's Sunset Heights in the Henry Trost-designed mission-style house where General Hugh Scott and Pancho Villa reportedly met in 1915.
1954
In an interview with ABC, O'Rourke suggested that the United States address the migrant caravan by investing in stability in countries where the migrants originate, countries in the Northern Triangle of Central America. O'Rourke said that U.S. involvement in Central America "has not been a very positive one over the last 60 years. You can go back to the coup [in Guatemala] that overthrew Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, fully backed by the Eisenhower administration and the Dulles brothers, who had an interest in the United Fruit company, whose fight with the government really precipitated the crisis that led to the coup."
September 26, 1972
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke (/ˈbɛtoʊ/ BEH-toh, also /ˈbɛdoʊ/ BED-oh; .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Spanish pronunciation: ['beto]; born September 26, 1972) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 16th congressional district from 2013 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, O'Rourke was the party's nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2018, a candidate for the presidential nomination in 2020, and the party's nominee for the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election.
September 26, 1972
Robert Francis O'Rourke was born on September 26, 1972, at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in El Paso, Texas, to Pat O'Rourke and Melissa Martha O'Rourke. He is a fourth-generation Irish American. In his infancy, his family gave him the nickname "Beto" initially to distinguish him from his namesake grandfather. Pat O'Rourke served in public office in El Paso as County Commissioner and County Judge; he was an associate of Texas Governor Mark White, served as the state chairman of Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, switched parties in the early 1990s, and made several failed attempts to win election to public office as a Republican. Jesse Jackson conducted a press conference on December 11, 1984, in the den of O'Rourke's boyhood home in Kern Place.
1976
In 2012, O'Rourke filed for the Democratic primary against the eight-term Silvestre Reyes to represent Texas's 16th congressional district. The primary was seen as the real contest in the heavily Democratic, Latino-majority district. Byrd ran O'Rourke's field operation and Escobar was head of communication. O'Rourke won 50.5 percent of the vote, just a few hundred votes above the threshold required to avoid a runoff against Reyes. He was contrasted with Reyes in his support for LGBT rights and drug liberalization. His campaign was largely on foot, and he reportedly knocked on 16,000 doors. He defeated his Republican opponent, Barbara Carrasco, in the general election with 65 percent of the vote. Upon O'Rourke's election, the district was no longer represented in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a 26-member group established in 1976, because he lacks Hispanic heritage. As the district was 80 percent Hispanic, with 77.6 percent of Hispanics being of voting-age, some officials, including David Austin, the El Paso–based border representative for the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, argued that he should be permitted to join. For his part, O'Rourke said he respected the caucus's bylaws.
1988
O'Rourke began his education at Escuela Montessori Del Valle preschool and continued to Rivera and Mesita Elementary Schools. In 1988, after two years at El Paso High School, he enrolled in Woodberry Forest School, an all-male boarding school in Madison County, Virginia. O'Rourke attended Columbia University, where in his junior year he co-captained Columbia's heavyweight rowing crew. He graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. He is fluently bilingual in English and Spanish.
1991
After being introduced to Bad Brains as a teen, O'Rourke became a fan of punk music. O'Rourke and two friends from El Paso, Mike Stevens and Arlo Klahr, learned to play musical instruments; O'Rourke took up the bass. In 1991, while at Columbia University, the trio recruited drummer Cedric Bixler-Zavala (eventual vocalist for At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta), and together they formed the band Foss. During the summer, they toured the United States and Canada, garnering the support of Feist. The group released a self-titled demo and a 7-inch record, "The El Paso Pussycats", on Western Breed Records in 1993.
1995
O'Rourke also played drums in the band Swedes, who released an album called Summer in 1995. O'Rourke and ex-members of Foss later started two other bands, a rock group called Fragile Gang and a cover band called The Sheeps.
May 19, 1995
On May 19, 1995, O'Rourke and his friends jumped over a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) physical plant, and were arrested by the UTEP police. He was held in jail overnight and posted bail the following day. He was initially charged with attempted burglary, but prosecutors dropped the case against O'Rourke and his friends in February 1996 when UTEP declined to pursue the charges.
1998
O'Rourke returned to El Paso in 1998. At first, he was working with computers as an inventory tracker at his mother's upscale furniture store and living in an apartment building owned by his father. O'Rourke said he wanted to address "brain-drain", or the exodus of youth caused by lack of opportunity. In 2000, he co-founded Stanton Street Technology Group, an Internet services and software company. With O'Rourke himself unable to obtain a loan, his father took out a $20,000 loan on his behalf. O'Rourke's wife, Amy, operated the business until June 2017. For a few years, the company also published an online newspaper, also called Stanton Street; the paper was a mix of arts and entertainment reviews, restaurant reviews and opinion columns that O'Rourke modeled on alternative periodicals like The Village Voice and New York Press. The company made a co-marketing agreement with local TV station, KTSM-TV, allowing StantonStreet.Com and the station's Internet site to share content and TV ads. KTSM's then news director, Eric Pearson, was O'Rourke's brother-in-law.
September 27, 1998
O'Rourke was arrested for driving while intoxicated on September 27, 1998, at 3:00 a.m. on Interstate 10 in Anthony, Texas. O'Rourke had lost control of his car and hit another vehicle. The charges were dismissed in October 1999 after he completed a court-approved DWI program. In response to criticism from a political opponent in 2005, O'Rourke said, "I've been open about it since the very beginning. I have owned up to it, and I have taken responsibility for it." He apologized and said he was "grateful for the second chance".
July 03, 2001
On July 3, 2001, O'Rourke's father, a longtime cycling enthusiast, died while riding his bicycle along the shoulder of Pete Domenici Highway, just outside the city limits of El Paso and across the New Mexico state line, when he was struck from behind by a car, throwing him 70 feet (21 m) and causing severe head injuries; he was pronounced dead at the scene. O'Rourke delivered the eulogy during the funeral service at St. Patrick's Cathedral in El Paso. On December 20, 2022, O'Rourke's sister, Erin, died at the age of 42; she suffered from intellectual disabilities and O'Rourke had been her legal guardian at one time. His mother died on December 17, 2023, from cancer.
2005
O'Rourke was born into a local political family in El Paso, Texas, and is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School and Columbia University. While studying at Columbia, he began a brief music career as bass guitarist in the post-hardcore band Foss. After his college graduation, he returned to El Paso and began a business career. In 2005, he was elected to the El Paso City Council, serving until 2011; he served as mayor pro tempore during his first year in office. O'Rourke was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 after defeating eight-term incumbent Democrat Silvestre Reyes in the primary.
June 14, 2005
On June 14, 2005, at his first city council meeting, O'Rourke was chosen as mayor pro tem by unanimous vote. The mayor pro tem represents the city at meetings and ceremonial occasions when the mayor is unavailable, presides over City Council in the mayor's absence, appoints council members to legislative review committees and generally works in concert with the mayor in a leadership capacity. On June 20, 2006, he relinquished the position, saying, "I said I would take it on condition that someone else would it in a year. ... I hope it becomes a new tradition that every year, a new mayor pro tem is elected."
2007
O'Rourke defeated two-term incumbent City Councilman Anthony Cobos, 57–43%. Byrd and Ortega were also elected; along with O'Rourke, they came to be referred to as "The Progressives". O'Rourke is one of the youngest representatives ever to have served on the City Council. In 2007, he won re-election to a second term, defeating Trini Acevedo, 70–30%.
2007
The media made comparisons between O'Rourke's Senate campaign and Obama's 2008 campaign for president, drawing parallels between their charismatic speaking styles, optimistic tones, and the nationwide attention their campaigns generated. Peter Hamby of Vanity Fair compared the energy at O'Rourke's rallies to the energy at Obama's rallies in 2007.
2009
O'Rourke favors the legalization of cannabis. In 2011, O'Rourke co-authored a book, Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico, which in part argues for an end to the prohibition of marijuana to reduce drug-related violence and undermine the finances of the Mexican drug cartels. He has called for the arrest records of individuals sentenced for possession of small amounts of cannabis to be expunged. During the 2018 Senate campaign, O'Rourke's opponent, Ted Cruz, claimed that O'Rourke sought to legalize heroin; in 2009 when O'Rourke was an El Paso city council member he called for "honest, open national debate on ending the prohibition on narcotics".
January 2009
In January 2009, O'Rourke sponsored a resolution calling for "comprehensive examination" of the War on Drugs and "the repeal of ineffective marijuana laws". The resolution, unanimously supported by his colleagues on the El Paso City Council, was vetoed by Mayor John Cook. O'Rourke told reporters the reason he spoke up about the War on Drugs was the thousands of people who had been killed in the nearby city of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. He said, "I hope it has all had its intended effect of starting the national discussion of the wisdom of the War on Drugs...and probably more importantly, helping to bring about a better solution than the status quo, which has led to the terror and tragedy in Juarez."
2012
In 2012, O'Rourke stated that "in tackling climate change and the greatest environmental threat we have ever faced, we need to take unprecedented action in building a foundation for a clean energy economy". He added, "Educating our fellow Americans about this threat to our quality of life is important to our success, and I will do all I can to make this issue a top priority in Congress."
March 2013
As a Congressman, he held at least one town hall meeting every month. In March 2013, O'Rourke and Republican Steve Pearce of New Mexico introduced the Border Enforcement Accountability, Oversight, and Community Engagement Act, legislation proposed to establish an ombudsman within the Department of Homeland Security that would investigate allegations of violence and civil-rights violations by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, create a commission that would overview the agency's policies and provide insight on how to spend its $18 billion annual budget, increase the training required for officers and agents, and establish protocols under which the CBP would be required to report deaths at the border or agents' use of force. He co-sponsored the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, which was enacted in 2014. Notably, Section 506 allowed the CBP to enter into public-private partnerships with local entities to help fund overtime pay to customs officers at ports of entry, which helped fund the personnel to lower wait times at the border. El Paso was one of five cities chosen to participate in the program.
2014
After being re-elected to the House in 2014 and 2016, O'Rourke declined to seek another term in 2018. Instead, he sought the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Ted Cruz, running a competitive campaign that drew national attention. Despite losing the election to Cruz by a margin of 2.6%, O'Rourke set a record for most votes ever cast for a Democrat in an election in Texas.
2014
During his bid for re-election in the fall of 2014, O'Rourke donated at least $28,000 from his own campaign funds to fellow Democratic candidates for House seats. O'Rourke was re-elected in 2014 with 67 percent of the vote.
November 2014
In November 2014, O'Rourke opposed Obama's deferred action policy that used an executive action to bypass Congress in order to spare approximately 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, saying "the motive is noble, but the means are really hard to stomach."
October 2015
In June 2016, O'Rourke endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, being one of the last Democratic congressmen to support her during the primary. As a sitting member of Congress, O'Rourke was a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention. In October 2015, O'Rourke announced his bid for a third term in 2016. He won the Democratic primary and defeated his Green and Libertarian opponents in the general election. When Nancy Pelosi faced a leadership challenge from Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, O'Rourke backed Ryan. O'Rourke said that he believed in term limits, and therefore that it was time for new leadership. He had given himself a term limit in the House, and promised not to serve any more than 12 years in the Senate if elected.
2016
O'Rourke criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses and the intervention it leads in support of the government of Yemen against the Houthis. In 2016, O'Rourke voted against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for its government's alleged role in the attacks. In October 2018, after President Trump indicated the U.S. would not sanction Saudi Arabia over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, O'Rourke stated: "Saudi Arabia must be held accountable. We must stop rewarding their bad behavior, whether it's what they've just done in the murder of a journalist or their export of those who are spreading a hateful ideology or their indiscriminately bombing civilians in Yemen."
June 22, 2016
On the evening of June 22, 2016, O'Rourke participated in the sit-in in the House of Representatives that attempted to force a vote on gun control legislation. When the Republicans ordered C-SPAN to turn off its normal coverage of the chamber, O'Rourke and Representative Scott Peters transmitted images by cell phone to social media for C-SPAN to broadcast.
September 2016
In September 2016, three bills that were attached as amendments to H.R. 5620 (or the VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016) were approved unanimously with bipartisan support in the House. The first, the Vet Connect Act of 2016 (H.R. 5162), would allow a veteran's entire medical record to be shared with a community provider, without explicit written consent, with a pilot of the program then being tried in El Paso. The Ask Veterans Act (H.R. 1319) would have a non-government contractor conduct an annual survey on behalf of the secretary of Veterans Affairs in order to determine veterans' experiences with hospital care and medical services at VA facilities, the results of which would be publicly accessible. O'Rourke developed this idea from feedback from veterans at town hall meetings. The Get Vets a Doc Now Act (H.R. 5501) would allow the VA to provide conditional job offers to resident doctors two years before the completion of their programs, in an effort to recruit doctors to fill the shortage of 43,000 clinicians.
October 2016
O'Rourke favors comprehensive immigration reform. As early as 2012, he asserted that his experience living on the border gave him "a strong understanding of immigration's impact on our community", calling El Paso "an Ellis Island to Latin America for more than 150 years", and spoke against 'militarizing' the border. O'Rourke opposed Trump's decision to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which granted temporary stay to some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors. O'Rourke said it is a "top priority" to protect DREAMers. In October 2016, he gave a TEDx talk, titled The Border Makes America Great, about his views on immigration.
2017
In 2017, the congressman, along with Steve Pearce of New Mexico and Eric Swalwell of California, sponsored the American Families United Act, which promoted the idea that US citizens have the right to sponsor their spouses for legal immigration.
March 2017
Allegheny College bestowed the 2018 Prize for Civility in Public Life to O'Rourke together with Will Hurd, a Texas Republican. In March 2017, facing snowstorm-induced flight cancellations, O'Rourke and Hurd, both stuck in San Antonio, needed to get back to Washington for a House vote. They rented a car and embarked on a 1,600 mi (2,600 km) drive that they captured on Facebook Live. O'Rourke and Hurd have worked collaboratively on legislation since the road trip.
March 31, 2017
No Democrat had been elected to statewide office in Texas since 1994. On March 31, 2017, O'Rourke formally announced his candidacy for the United States Senate seat held by incumbent Republican Ted Cruz. In March 2018, O'Rourke became the Democratic Party nominee, winning 61.8 percent of the primary vote. O'Rourke campaigned in all of Texas's 254 counties. He said he planned to run a positive campaign, not focused on Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
June 2017
O'Rourke pledged not to accept PAC contributions for his Senate campaign. He raised $2 million within the first three months, mostly from small donations. During the campaign, PolitiFact rated his claim of not taking PAC money as "true". He received his first major organizational endorsement from End Citizens United in June 2017, which found that he had raised triple the funds of Cruz without accepting corporate special interest money. In the second quarter of 2018, he raised $10.4 million to Cruz's $4.6 million, with each candidate having raised $23 million by September 1. O'Rourke raised more than $38 million in the third quarter, three times Cruz's totals for the same period. It is the most raised in a U.S. Senate race in history. According to his campaign, the donations came from 802,836 individual contributions, mostly from Texas. When asked if he would share the funds with Democrats in other races, he declined, saying that he wanted to honor "the commitment that those who've contributed to this campaign have made to me." O'Rourke raised $80 million for the campaign, which was the highest amount ever raised by a U.S. Senate candidate.
August 2017
O'Rourke supported the Iran nuclear deal regarding Iran's development of weapons of mass destruction. In August 2017, O'Rourke criticized Trump's hard-line stance towards North Korea, saying that "We must not allow this president to sleepwalk this country, or tweet this country, into war with North Korea." In March 2019, O'Rourke called for ending the U.S.–led Iraq War and War in Afghanistan. O'Rourke opposed the U.S. involvement in the Syrian Civil War and providing arms to the rebel fighters in Syria. He also criticized the NATO-led military intervention in Libya a "factor in the destabilization of the Middle East and the rise of ISIS." O'Rourke supported legislation to curtail NSA's broad and unwarranted surveillance of U.S. and foreign citizens.
2018
Ted Cruz asserted in 2018 that O'Rourke wanted "open borders and wants to take our guns." PolitiFact found that Cruz's claims were "false", noting that O'Rourke had "not called for opening the borders or for government agents to take guns from law-abiding residents". Subsequently, in an interview in February 2019, O'Rourke indicated he would tear down the wall between El Paso and the southern US border, since he feels that the fencing has forced migrants to the most inhospitable areas of the southern border, "ensuring their suffering and death".
March 2018
O'Rourke often highlighted his days as a rock musician with Foss in interviews. By March 2018, Dan Solomon of Texas Monthly remarked that O'Rourke "seemingly can't escape a single profile without the words 'punk rock Democrat' appearing in the headline". Political observers and journalists felt that O'Rourke's punk past became an important element of his image and political outlook. In an op-ed for The New York Times, Mimi Swartz expressed her belief that O'Rourke's former membership in a punk band had likely boosted his appeal with millennials.
March 07, 2018
On March 7, 2018, O'Rourke told Alisyn Camerota of CNN: "We have a great tradition and culture of gun ownership and gun safety for hunting, for sport, for self-defense... I think that can allow Texas to take the lead on a really tough issue, which the country is waiting for leadership and action on."
June 2018
He has criticized President Donald Trump's rhetoric on immigration, saying: "[Trump is] constantly stoking anxiety and fear about Mexicans, immigrants and the border with Mexico. Unfortunately this President takes another step into a dark world of fear, isolation and separation." In June 2018, O'Rourke led protests in Tornillo, Texas, against the Trump administration family separation policy which involved the separation of children of immigrant families. The city is located just miles from the Rio Grande, the river that creates the border of the United States and Mexico in the state of Texas. The Trump administration had created a "tent-city" in Tornillo, where separated children were being held without their parents. O'Rourke called this practice "Un-American" and the responsibility of all Americans. O'Rourke stated that leading the march "was a religious experience... I happen to have been raised Catholic, and what I take away from my religion is you do your best to love everyone, to be good to everyone." In April 2019, O'Rourke publicly compared rhetoric used by Trump to describe immigrants to language from Nazi Germany.
July 2018
In July 2018, O'Rourke said that Trump's performance while attending the 2018 Russia–United States summit in Helsinki warranted impeachment. Addressing the Trump–Putin joint press conference of July 16, he said standing "on stage in another country with the leader of another country who wants to and has sought to undermine this country, and to side with him over the United States—if I were asked to vote on this I would vote to impeach the president." On March 23, 2019, O'Rourke accused President Trump of collusion with Russia to "undermine and influence" U.S. elections.
September 2018
O'Rourke has spoken out against racial inequality. He supports the football players who have taken part in the "Take a knee" protests. Speaking in a video that went viral, O'Rourke said he believes there is "nothing more American than to peacefully stand up, or take a knee, for your rights, anytime, anywhere or any place." He has also asserted that while he was given second chances after being arrested twice in his younger years, those chances are often "denied to too many of our fellow Texans, particularly those who don't look like me or have access to the same opportunities that I did." In September 2018, Cruz posted to Twitter a video of O'Rourke in a Dallas church, largely attended by African-Americans, speaking out against the killing of Bothem Shem Jean, an unarmed black man in his own home, by an off-duty police officer. In the video, the crowd gave the speech a standing ovation, and the video served to bolster O'Rourke's standing nationally, going viral and receiving wide praise.
September 18, 2018
On September 18, 2018, a Quinnipiac poll based on phone interviews put Cruz nine points ahead of O'Rourke among likely voters, but a September 19 Ipsos online poll done in conjunction with Reuters and the University of Virginia showed O'Rourke leading Cruz by two points. Going into the third debate on October 18, 2018, a CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, showed Cruz leading the campaign 52 percent to 45 percent among likely voters.
September 21, 2018
The first of three scheduled debates between O'Rourke and Ted Cruz took place on September 21, 2018. The candidates disagreed on gun rights, immigration, marijuana, the "take a knee" controversy, and the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. At the end of the debate, the moderator asked the candidates to "say something nice about each other". O'Rourke praised Cruz's parenting. Cruz compared O'Rourke to Bernie Sanders, saying he "admired [his] willingness to stand up for socialist beliefs and high taxes." O'Rourke replied, "True to form." Analysts described Cruz as more experienced and aggressive, but said O'Rourke won over the crowd.
October 18, 2018
Cruz declined to participate in the third, town hall-style debate for CNN held on October 18, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. O'Rourke agreed to attend the town hall meeting alone. During the meeting, O'Rourke said he did not see himself running for president because he has young children. He said he regretted calling Ted Cruz "Lyin' Ted", a nickname given to Cruz by Donald Trump. He confirmed that he would vote to impeach and indict Trump. He defended his Spanish nickname against accusations of cultural appropriation.
November 06, 2018
On November 6, 2018, Cruz defeated O'Rourke, 50.9%–48.3%. Despite his loss, O'Rourke was credited for the election of several down-ticket candidates of the Democratic Party, which some called the "Beto Effect". For example, Republicans lost control of the Texas Third and Fifth Courts of Appeals in the 2018 elections. Of 150 state House seats, 12 formerly Republican seats were taken by Democrats, as well as two of the state's 31 state Senate seats. O'Rourke received over four million votes, compared to Hillary Clinton, who received only 3.9 million votes in the 2016 presidential election in Texas, and David Alameel, the Democratic nominee in the 2014 Texas Senate race, who received only 1.6 million votes. O'Rourke set a record for most votes ever cast for a Democrat in Texas history.
March 2019
In March 2019, O'Rourke said regarding the China–United States trade war that President Trump had a "legitimate" cause and "We want him to be successful in this, but as I was reminded by a fellow Iowan, when have we ever gone to war, including a trade war without allies?"
March 14, 2019
On March 14, 2019, O'Rourke announced his candidacy in the 2020 United States presidential election. He suspended his campaign on November 1, 2019, due to a lack of traction and financial issues. He later endorsed Joe Biden on the same day as Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg.
April 2019
O'Rourke criticized Israel's actions during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict and voted against funding Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. O'Rourke criticized Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu following his comments about annexing the settlements in the occupied West Bank after the 2019 Israeli election, calling him a "racist". In April 2019, he called the U.S.–Israel relationship "one of the most important relationships that we have on the planet."
September 2019
After the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting, he called for a complete ban on the sale and possession of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines as well as suggesting a mandatory buy-back program to remove such existing assault weapons and magazines. In September 2019, O'Rourke reaffirmed his commitment to mandatory assault weapon buybacks in a tweet. During a live televised interview on October 16, 2019, MSNBC cable news-show host Joe Scarborough asked O'Rourke how he, as president, would respond to non-compliance from those assault rifle owners who regard such a mandatory program as "an unjust law and unconstitutional." O'Rourke replied: "There have to be consequences, or else there is no respect for the law… In that case, I think there would be a visit by law enforcement to recover that firearm and to make sure that it is purchased."
September 19, 2019
In a September 19, 2019, Democratic presidential debate, O'Rourke again called for a mandatory buyback of assault weapons saying "Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47." Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware lamented on CNN that O'Rourke's stance could haunt Democrats, because "that clip will be played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying, 'Democrats are coming for your guns'".
October 2019
In October 2019, during his presidential campaign, O'Rourke proposed to remove the tax-exempt status of religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage. At CNN's Equality Town Hall, O'Rourke asserted that "'there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us'". O'Rourke's press secretary later clarified that he "'was referring to religious institutions who take discriminatory action'". O'Rourke's comment "infuriated a swath of religious and conservative leaders". Then presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, voiced disagreement and criticism of O'Rourke's stance.
November 01, 2019
O'Rourke announced the end of his campaign for president on November 1, 2019. He endorsed Joe Biden at a rally in Dallas, Texas, on March 2, 2020, one day before Super Tuesday.
December 2019
In December 2019, O'Rourke founded the political action committee "Powered by People". The group is a hybrid PAC, which works like a super PAC and a traditional PAC.
2020
In late 2018, speculation began that O'Rourke might run in the United States presidential election in 2020. Prior to the midterm elections, The New Republic said O'Rourke's Senate campaign was the beginning of a bid for the presidency, despite calling it "journalistic hedging", or a justification for the media extensively covering a candidate who was expected to lose his race.
2020
On March 13, El Paso TV station KTSM-TV reported that O'Rourke had decided to run for president in 2020. O'Rourke confirmed speculation the following day by announcing that he was entering the presidential race. According to Politico, during his presidential race, O'Rourke presented his 2018 loss to Cruz as a prominent selling point.
February 18, 2021
During the multiple crises that Texas faced as a result of the February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm, O'Rourke organized virtual phone banks to perform wellness calls and offer assistance to senior citizens. He claimed that the volunteers he had organized had made 784,000 phone calls in a single day on February 18, 2021.
November 15, 2021
O'Rourke announced his bid for Governor of Texas in the 2022 gubernatorial election on November 15, 2021. He challenged incumbent Republican Greg Abbott. During his announcement video, O'Rourke called the 2021 Texas power crisis a "symptom of a much larger problem". With no serious primary challenge, O'Rourke won the Democratic nomination for governor in March 2022.
March 01, 2022
On March 1, 2022, O'Rourke won the Democratic nomination for the Texas gubernatorial election. He was defeated by Republican incumbent Greg Abbott in the election.
May 25, 2022
On May 25, 2022, O'Rourke confronted Texas Governor Greg Abbott during a press conference about the Robb Elementary School shooting that had occurred the day before and told the governor, "You are doing nothing. You are offering up nothing. You said this was not predictable. This was totally predictable when you choose not to do anything." The confrontation received a mixed response from the crowd. Senator Ted Cruz told O'Rourke to "sit down" while Uvalde Mayor Don MacLaughlin shouted at him and accused him of being a "sick son of a bitch" and making the tragedy a "political issue". O'Rourke left the room accompanied by security guards and continued his remarks outside the building, criticizing Governor Abbott for not funding mental health services and for opposing gun regulations. The New York Times described the confrontation as a "political gamble" that received criticism from both Republicans and some Democrats.
February 2024
In February 2024, O'Rouke expressed support of a campaign to vote "uncommitted" in the 2024 Michigan Democratic presidential primary, arguing it would put pressure on President Biden to bring an end to the Gaza war.
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