Face of Nation : Mr. O’Rourke, who represented the city in Congress until the start of this year, said he would abandon the relatively traditional approach he has so far taken — with limited success — and largely detach his travel from a primary calendar that tethers most candidates to a handful of early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
Instead, Mr. O’Rourke said he would now plan his political activities around confronting Mr. Trump in direct and personal terms, and highlighting what Mr. O’Rourke views as the injustices of Mr. Trump’s administration. He intends to seek out immigrant-rich towns to campaign in, and to make gun control a central issue.
Mr. O’Rourke said he had begun to think of the campaign differently after being asked last week whether he would break away from his grieving city to attend the Iowa State Fair, a traditional stop on the presidential trail.
He chose to skip the fair, and on Wednesday said he felt that kind of campaigning did not match the political moment. “I don’t know that I’ve been doing a good enough job to match that threat with the urgency and the honesty and the clarity that it deserves,” Mr. O’Rourke said. “Being with those who have been denigrated and demeaned is more important than it has ever been.”
Beyond his imminent trip to Mississippi, Mr. O’Rourke said he envisioned campaign trips to visit Muslim communities that Mr. Trump had demonized, as well as people who were in jail and certain parts of the country that voted heavily for Mr. Trump.
It is difficult to foresee the political implications of Mr. O’Rourke’s decision on the crowded Democratic race. The field of candidates has not lacked for strong antagonists of Mr. Trump, nor for champions of liberal policies on immigration and gun control. By shifting his focus away from the early primary states, Mr. O’Rourke runs the risk of being overshadowed on multiple levels — on the national stage by better-known rivals, like Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Elizabeth Warren, and in Iowa and New Hampshire by more attentive underdogs, like Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker.
Mr. O’Rourke responded to the attack in part by branding Mr. Trump a racist and white supremacist, and blaming him for having “created the conditions that made an attack like this possible and even likely.”
Mr. O’Rourke signaled in the interview that he would repeat that charge on Thursday, describing the country as facing a crisis brought on by “the hatred, the racism, the invitation to violence from this president.”
In some respects, Mr. O’Rourke’s new approach is an abrupt departure from his campaign style so far — one that has involved criticism of Mr. Trump but not a consuming focus on the president, with his campaign schedule defined by Mr. O’Rourke’s dogged personal courtship of voters in the early-voting states.
His support in national pollshas been hovering recently around 2 percent. Mr. O’Rourke has also acknowledged, in both public and private settings, that the early stages of his presidential campaign gave the impression of excessive self-regard, starting with a romantic portrait on the cover of Vanity Fair that heralded his entryinto the race.
