Beto O’Rourke stumbled with women from the start, featuring his wife sitting silently in his presidential campaign launch video and joking repeatedly about being a part-time parent. It’s an unusual position for a candidate whose appeal with women helped make him a national political phenomenon while nearly upsetting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last fall. “Any perceived entitlement by a young white male candidate did disqualify him with some young women activists,” Judy Downs, executive director of the Des Moines-area Polk County Democratic Party, said of O’Rourke.
