Castro formally announced his candidacy for the 2020 presidential election on January 12, 2019 at a rally in San Antonio. His brother, Congressman Joaquín Castro, and their mother introduced him at the rally. Castro would have been the first Democratic presidential nominee since 1924 to not have first served as vice president, governor or senator, and the first Hispanic or Latino nominee for president. He was the first Texan in the 2020 race and would have been the third-youngest president if elected. In his announcement, Castro emphasized Medicare-For-All, universal pre-K, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as part of comprehensive immigration reform. In 2019, he purchased a Fox News ad in order to speak directly to Donald Trump about the El Paso shooting. Despite referring to his healthcare plan as Medicare For All, his position was actually a public option rather than the single-payer plan proposed by Bernie Sanders and Pramila Jayapal.