“Beto O’Rourke established a dominant presence on social media during his nail-biting run for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas last year. So far, though, his 2020 presidential campaign has lagged behind major Democratic rivals in Facebook ad spending,” CNBC reports.

“Political strategists said this could be a sign that O’Rourke is focusing more on the ground game than digital tactics because of potential trouble attracting donors – even after his campaign against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz grew into a fundraising juggernaut.”

“Beto O’Rourke issued an ambitious plan to revamp the U.S. voting system by cracking down on voter suppression and getting an additional 35 million people to the ballot box by the 2024 elections,” Reuters reports.

“A key part of O’Rourke’s plan would be to set term limits for politicians, to give young people incentive to vote for new and fresher candidates. He proposes limiting membership of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to 12 years, and requiring Supreme Court justices – currently appointed for life – to step down after 18 years.”

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) “spoke on the phone with Hillary Clinton” last week, the Daily Beast reports.

“It was the first time the two had spoken about the 2020 campaign.”

The documentary Running With Beto will premiere tonight on HBO.

Daily Beast: “In the doc, Beto comes off as charismatic yet controlling—its most revealing moments being ones where he is seen dressing down his clearly overworked staff for their perceived lack of preparedness. The person on the receiving end of most of the scoldings is Cynthia Cano, his road manager. At several tense points in the film, Cano is criticized by Beto—in front of her campaign colleagues—for not leaving enough time in his schedule for media interviews, having him be late to campaign events, and not adequately prepping him for those events. (Cano views Beto’s penchant for going long in his speeches and wanting to speak with every single constituent and/or person with a microphone as the reason for his constant tardiness and lack of prep time, which appears to be the more likely culprit.)”

“After Beto was narrowly defeated by Cruz, he delivered a concession speech in front of thousands of supporters in his backyard of El Paso, where he exclaimed, ‘I’m so fucking proud of you guys.’ Just prior to that, in the backstage area of the venue, Modigliani’s cameras caught Beto and his top staffers (as well as his teary-eyed wife, Amy) in an intimate huddle, where the Senate candidate apologized to them for being ‘a giant asshole.'”

“In the days leading up to Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, a top Republican opposition research firm was brimming with requests from political reporters angling for dirt,” the Daily Beast reports.

“America Rising, a political action committee that shared details of its internal inquiries with The Daily Beast, said the asks came from a dozen or more reporters and ranged from broad questions to more tailored points of interest. But 10 weeks after O’Rourke’s official launch, those requests are virtually nonexistent.”

Said one staffer: “The requests for oppo on him have completely died off.”

Beto O’Rourke took a break from campaigning and livestreamed himself getting a haircut. He also took questions from Facebook followers.

New York Times: “Beto O’Rourke said Monday he ‘can do a better job’ of communicating his 2020 campaign message, acknowledging that he must take steps to revive his once-promising presidential bid after seeing his polling dip in recent weeks.”

“Appearing on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, Mr. O’Rourke said that after two months in the race, and ‘more than 150 town halls,’ he recognized he had to broaden his strategy to appeal to a national audience and not only the voters and news media at his events.”

Associated Press: “In a tacit recognition that this approach isn’t working, O’Rourke is planning to try again, taking a hands-on role in staging a ‘reintroduction’ ahead of next month’s premier Democratic presidential debate. As he finalizes his plans, O’Rourke has entered an intentional ‘quiet period’ to build out campaign infrastructure, according to an adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the campaign’s strategy.”

“That will end soon. O’Rourke is planning to significantly ramp up national media appearances — he is appearing live on ABC’s The View on Tuesday after skipping most such exposure in recent months. He’s also poised to offer more concrete policy plans on top issues. So far, he’s issued just one — a sweeping proposal to combat climate change.”

Harry Enten: “You can see O’Rourke’s struggles most clearly in the polls. In an average of national polls taken since Biden entered the race, O’Rourke has fallen to just below 5% support. That’s the lowest he has been since at least December.”

Politico: “Celebrating defeat is unusual for a politician, and doing so makes O’Rourke notably different from the rest of the unwieldy field of Democrats running for president. … O’Rourke instead presents his loss to Cruz as a prominent selling point.”

“For O’Rourke, the phenomenon on display in that race—failure without negative effects, and with perhaps even some kind of personal boost—is a feature of his life and career. That biography is marked as much by meandering, missteps and moments of melancholic searching as by résumé-boosting victories and honors.”

BuzzFeed News: “The low-profile Democratic lawyer who played a central role in Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s election campaigns, and who literally wrote the book on the obscure and crucial art of delegate selection, has gone to work for Beto O’Rourke.”

“There aren’t many presidential campaign staffers whose hires are worth a news article, but the lawyer, Jeff Berman, is one of them. Though he doesn’t work in the visible part of politics — admaking, messaging, communications, yelling at people on Twitter or cable news — Berman is America’s leading expert on the strange and at times undemocratic machine that is crucial to how parties select their candidates.”

“And his hire suggests that O’Rourke is trying to build a machine as well as a movement.”

Beto O’Rourke told the Dallas Morning News that he now supports impeaching President Trump.

Said O’Rourke: “We’re finally learning the truth about this president. And yes, there has to be consequences. Yes, there has to be accountability. Yes, I think there’s enough evidence now for the House of Representatives to move forward with impeachment. This is our country, and this is the one chance that we get to ensure that it remains a democracy and that no man, regardless of his position, is above the law.”

“Beto O’Rourke is pledging not to take large donations from the fossil fuel industry — an about-face from his star-making run for Senate in oil-rich Texas last year when he was one of the top candidates backed by the sector,” the AP reports.

BuzzFeed News: “O’Rourke has done little national media since launching his campaign, including avoiding a CNN town hall — a major national stage that has hosted most Democratic candidates, and boosted Mayor Pete Buttigieg in national polls. (He did appear on MSNBC on Monday to talk about his new climate plan.)”

“That strategy is evidence of a campaign, and a candidate, measuring success differently than Washington standards, aides say: in part by the pace and frequency of campaign stops and the number of questions taken by voters, not polling surges, national moments, and message tests. Aides say they are focused on getting O’Rourke personally in front of many voters as possible, especially in unconventional venues.”

Washington Post: “Over the past weeks, O’Rourke has subtly adjusted his campaign style and tone in ways that counteract the criticism and mockery he has faced.”

“O’Rourke’s handling of many Democratic voters’ needs for a rhetorically different approach has developed in full view. In his 2018 U.S. Senate campaign, O’Rourke favored a sunny, optimistic pitch, only rarely castigating his Republican opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz.”

“He has tried to stay true to that approach, but he now calls the president ‘racist’ and regularly compares his rhetoric to Hitler’s, an escalation of his prior criticism of Trump and his administration.”

“The former police officer who arrested Beto O’Rourke for driving drunk in 1998, along with the sergeant who signed the incident report, both say they believe now what they reported at the time: that O’Rourke tried to leave the scene of the wreck he caused,” the Texas Tribune reports.

“O’Rourke admits he was intoxicated and says there is no justification for his actions, but he has denied that he tried to flee.”

Los Angeles Times: “The former El Paso congressman will stop at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College downtown for an outdoor rally at 4 p.m. Saturday. On Sunday, O’Rourke is planning a town hall at the United Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco, followed by multiple stops in the Central Valley on Monday. He wraps up his visit Tuesday morning with a town hall in San Diego.

“Notably absent from O’Rourke’s itinerary are the private Hollywood and Silicon Valley fundraisers that presidential candidates typically hold during visits to California. Spokesman Chris Evans said O’Rourke has held no fundraising events and has not scheduled any.”