Beto O’Rourke Set to Kick Off Presidential Campaign in El Paso

EL PASO — Beto O’Rourke was set to officially kick off his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination Saturday morning during an outdoor rally near the border with Mexico.

The setting, on the street that connects Mr. O’Rourke’s hometown, El Paso, with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, symbolized what his campaign said would be one of Mr. O’Rourke’s themes — a “unifying vision for bridging divides” to unite Americans from all walks of life.

But the speech by Mr. O’Rourke, a former three-term member of Congress, comes at a time of extraordinary discord over immigration, with a surge of migrants trying to enter the United States and President Trump threatening to seal off the border next week.

In El Paso, and later Saturday in rallies in Houston and outside the state’s capitol in Austin, Mr. O’Rourke planned to stress climate change, criminal justice reform, health care, the economy and immigration, all topics that have emerged as major issues in the effort by Democrats to unseat Mr. Trump in 2020.

With thousands of supporters expected to attend Saturday’s rally in El Paso, some had already headed to the site Friday night to scout the location, looking for the best position to view the speech.

“We want to be close,” said Bertha Bourgeois, 72, of El Paso, an O’Rourke booster who was watching workers assemble a media platform for his speech. “I like his views. I like how he thinks.” Volunteers wearing black-and-white BETO T-shirts began arriving at 7 a.m. Saturday in anticipation of Mr. O’Rourke’s appearance at 10 a.m. local time.

The campaign also said it was live-streaming the event to 1,000 volunteer-organized watch parties across the country.

El Paso Republicans, meanwhile, were set to sponsor a counter-rally one block away.

Mr. O’Rourke, 46, grew up in this border town, the son of a local political figure and a furniture store operator. He had little name recognition until last year, when he became a national figure during his unsuccessful effort to unseat Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican.

With a progressive sheen and grass-roots appeal, Mr. O’Rourke set fund-raising records in that Senate campaign. He continued that record-setting pace in the 24 hours after announcing his White House ambitions two weeks ago, raising more than $6.1 million online in one day and outpacing the $5.9 million collected by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in his first day.

Some recent polls place Mr. O’Rourke at third in popularity among Democrats expected to be in the race, behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet announced his intentions, and Mr. Sanders.

Marta Lopez, 71, a retired state worker from El Paso, had come to the rally wearing one of the BETO T-shirts. “We’ve lived here all our lives, and I feel we don’t need a wall,” said Ms. Lopez, adding that she admires Mr. O’Rourke’s positions on immigration as well as his decision not to accept PAC money.

Mr. O’Rourke was to be joined at the rally Saturday by his wife, Amy, and their three children, as well as Representative Veronica Escobar, his successor in the House of Representatives.

Since announcing his candidacy on March 14, Mr. O’Rourke has spent much of his time on a listening tour around the country.

He has made immigration issues a central focus. At a recent appearance in Milwaukee, he spoke about the harmony of El Paso’s multicultural environment and added,“We have nothing to fear from immigrants from, really, anywhere in the world, but certainly those that arrive at our southern border.”

For his campaign kickoff, Mr. O’Rourke chose a location just over a mile north of the Paso del Norte International Bridge linking the United States and Mexico.

The crossing has emerged as a flash point in Mr. Trump’s efforts to seal the border. Faced with hundreds of refugees trying to enter the United States daily, border agents have begun holding the migrants in a makeshift pen beneath the bridge. Mr. O’Rourke visited the bridge earlier in the week.