Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, was greeted by a packed house of supporters and scattered thunderstorms upon his return to Ames. He delivered a speech with a focus on immigration.

Joan Bolin-Betts hosted the presidential candidate at her home in Ames. According to the campaign, 160 people attended the event — making for a very hot room while attendees waited for the arrival of the candidate. O’Rourke was joined by his wife and their three children at the event.

“He reminds me of [the late-Iowa Gov.] Bob Ray,” Bolin-Betts said of why she is supporting O’Rourke. “He has a strong moral code; he’s a good family man; he cares about someone else besides himself; he respects other people’s rights — he’s moral through and through.”

Bolin-Betts said she does not believe President Donald Trump has a “moral core.” She added she changed parties in 2016. She supported then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

O’Rourke spoke in Bolin-Bett’s living room — taking his place in front of her fireplace — which had books on Robert Kennedy and the Mueller Report on it, among others.

Abe Rakov, a longtime aide to former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, has signed onto former Rep. Beto O'Rourke's presidential bid as the campaign's early-states director.

Rakov managed Kander's races for secretary of state in 2012 and for Senate in 2016, when he lost by less than 3 percentage points while gaining a national following among Democrats. Rakov later became president of Let America Vote, the national political engagement group that Kander founded after losing to GOP Sen. Roy Blunt.

Rakov will have a portfolio covering Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina for O'Rourke's team, after gaining experience in those states running operations for Let America Vote in 2018.

Rakov has also served as deputy secretary of state in Missouri and as communications director for Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton and deputy communications director for former Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.

A spokesperson for the O'Rourke campaign confirmed Rakov's hiring. Rakov will work from the O'Rourke campaign's headquarters in El Paso, Texas.

The national finance director for John Hickenlooper’s presidential campaign is departing and joining rival Beto O’Rourke’s effort, O’Rourke’s campaign told POLITICO on Monday.

The aide, Dan Sorenson, is leaving the former two-term Colorado governor the day after the deadline for 2nd-quarter fundraising and after last week’s Democratic debate — an ominous sign for a presidential bid that has struggled to gain traction.

“We wish him the best with his new opportunity,” Lauren Hitt, Hickenlooper’s communications director, told POLITICO in a text message.

The Hickenlooper campaign already faced a steep climb to qualify for the fall debates, which require 130,000 donors and reaching 2 percent in four qualifying polls. Even if he ultimately withdraws from the race to challenge Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado — as some party leaders had long hoped he would — there is now a crowded field of Democrats already running that he would have to defeat.

“We’re thrilled to have Dan join our team to bring more supporters into this campaign and ensure Beto’s message of building a new kind of politics where no American is left behind can reach voters across the country,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, O’Rourke‘s campaign manager.

ESSENCE FEST IS BRINGING SEVERAL 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE NOMINEE HOPEFULS FACE-TO-FACE WITH THE LARGEST GATHERING OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE COUNTRY.
ESSENCE Fest is bringing several of the Democratic contenders for the 2020 Presidential candidate slot face-to-face with the largest gathering of Black women in the country.

Announced today, the 2019 ESSENCE Festival presented by Coca-Cola will host exclusive keynote conversations with five of the leading Democratic contenders in the 2020 Presidential race, including Senator Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Kamala Harris, Former Representative Beto O’Rourke and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

These live ‘Presidential Spotlight’ segments will take place on Saturday, July 6 and Sunday, July 7, 2019 on the ESSENCE Power Stage at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA. Following the candidates’ remarks, a question-and answer session with each will be led by Rev. Al Sharpton, ESSENCE CEO Michelle Ebanks and Essence Ventures Founder & Chair, Richelieu Dennis. The Q&A will feature questions generated directly from the ESSENCE community, which includes more than 24 million Black women.

The keynotes will be aired on MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke visited Mexico on Sunday and listened to tearful immigrants say they fled Central American violence and turmoil to seek asylum in the U.S., but were turned away at the border.
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A fluent Spanish speaker, O’Rourke met around a table at a shelter with immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, some of whom wept as they told of being denied entry into the US while their asylum claims are processed. Many said they were terrified they’d be sent back to their home countries, where their lives had been threatened because of abusive spouses, street gang violence or drug smugglers.
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He blames those being forced to wait on “the Trump administration’s unlawful ‘Remain in Mexico’ program,” which has allowed the United States to return thousands of Central Americans to Mexican border cities as they wait to hear about their asylum claims. It is meant to reduce the attractiveness of US asylum requests that in the past had allowed claimants to remain in the US for years as their cases wound their way through the courts.

Praising his hometown as part of the world’s largest “binational” community with Juarez is a centerpiece of O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, and he released a sweeping immigration plan in May calling for providing millions of people in the country illegally with a “pathway” to US citizenship, while deploying thousands of lawyers to the border to help process asylum cases and earmarking $5 billion to improve living conditions in Central America.
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During the first presidential primary debate in Miami, last week, however, O’Rourke clashed with fellow Texan and presidential candidate Julian Castro, who chided the ex-congressman for not being willing to fully decriminalize crossing the US-Mexico border illegally.

O’Rourke has argued that doing so could result in drug- and people-smugglers being protected.

Castro, a former Obama administration housing chief and San Antonio mayor, told a Texas rally on Friday night that he had suddenly gone from long being outshined by O’Rourke on the campaign trail to becoming “THE Texan in this race.”