<body><div><figure><img src="http://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=12KIck_0Ksjp2sE00" alt="http://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=12KIck_0Ksjp2sE00" width="1920" height="1280" ></figure>In a spine-tingling preview of the 2020 general election, Donald Trump and Beto O’Rourke squared off Monday night in El Paso with dueling rallies so close together that attendees at O’Rourke’s event could reportedly hear the speakers blaring from the County Coliseum. O’Rourke has yet to leap into the presidential race, and plans to make an announcement by the end of the month. But with the two men within literal shouting distance of each other, the cable-news split screen played out as a sort of test run for how an O’Rourke-Trump showdown might look.The president seemed intent on diminishing O’Rourke, but ended up elevating him. A “young man who’s got very little going for himself, except he’s got a great first name,” he said dismissively, while asserting with usual Trumpian aplomb that 69,000 people had signed up to be at his rally, and that the El Paso Fire Department had packed about 10,000 people into an arena meant to hold 8,000. (The fire department responded in a statement to the El Paso Times that the arena fits roughly 6,500 people, and there were precisely that number in attendance.) Minutes later, Trump tripled his own number. “So we have, let’s say, 35,000 people tonight. And [O’Rourke] has 200 people, 300 people. Not too good,” Trump told the crowd. “In fact, what I would do is I would say that may be the end of his presidential bid. But he did challenge us.”In fact, O’Rourke had closer to 7,000 or 8,000 people in attendance at his own rally (possibly even 10,000 or 15,000)—perhaps more than Trump himself. “What a gift Trump is giving Beto,” Mark McKinnon, a former chief media adviser to five presidential campaigns, told the Houston Chronicle. El Paso, after all, is one of the most liberal areas in Texas—the centerpiece of the state’s 16th Congressional District, which O’Rourke represented for six years before retiring to run for U.S. senator. While Trump has tried to take credit for the border city’s low crime rate, El Paso officials have made a point of formally rebutting the president. “Even if you give [the] president the benefit of the doubt, the fence that was built in 2008 has made really no difference one way or the other,” said District Attorney Jaime Esparza, knocking down Trump’s argument.On Monday night, while Trump was in Texas, congressional lawmakers agreed in principle to a deal that would provide $1.375 billion for fencing and other physical barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border, less than a quarter of the amount he had demanded.O’Rourke, meanwhile, came off sounding downright presidential. “With the eyes of the country upon us, all of us together are going to make our stand, here in one of the safest cities in the United States of America,” O’Rourke told a roaring crowd. “Safe not because of walls, but in spite of walls. Secure because we treat one another with dignity and respect.” After months of aimless ennui following his narrow loss to Ted Cruz in the midterms, the rally appeared to energize O’Rourke. “Yeah, I’m back in the mix,” he told Politico before going onstage. “All of us right now have a responsibility to do all that we can, and this is me doing my best.”<h2>More Great Stories from Vanity Fair</h2>— The leaking, gossiping, and infighting that made Kellyanne Conway a formidable White House player— Why old news habits must die—so that real journalism can live— Nancy Pelosi is America’s most powerful power-suit boss— Is Kamala Harris the 2020 candidate to beat?— Your passport to Vanity Fair’s 25th Hollywood Issue with Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Chadwick Boseman, and moreLooking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.</div></body>

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In a spine-tingling preview of the 2020 general election, Donald Trump and Beto O’Rourke squared off Monday night in El Paso with dueling rallies so close together that attendees at O’Rourke’s event could reportedly hear the speakers blaring from the County Coliseum. O’Rourke has yet to leap into the presidential race, and plans to make an announcement by the end of the month. But with the two men within literal shouting distance of each other, the cable-news split screen played out as a sort of test run for how an O’Rourke-Trump showdown might look.

Did Trump Just Turn Beto into a 2020 Front-Runner?