A former top strategist for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election effort is joining Texan Beto O'Rourke as a campaign manager for his 2020 presidential bid.

The addition of Jen O'Malley Dillon gives O'Rourke a seasoned, high-level operative as he attempts to distinguish himself in a crowded field of candidates seeking to challenge President Donald Trump next year.

"We're exited that Jen O'Malley Dillon has joined our team," O'Rourke said Monday in text message forwarded by his campaign. "Her leadership and creativity will be a great addition to a campaign that is already doing so much to bring people together to overcome the greatest set of challenges this country has ever faced."

O'Malley Dillon was Obama's deputy campaign manager. She said in a series of tweets that as a mother of two she wants to make a better world for her children. Her hiring was first reported by the New York Times.

"I’m so excited to join the @betoorourke team and get to work building a campaign that will lift people up and unite them to meet our challenges, and that will show up everywhere and listen to & value every voice," she said in one of the tweets.

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She added, "and not gonna lie, pretty excited for our kids to get a chance to live in El Paso, where" her husband grew up.

Her husband, Patrick Dillon, was the deputy director of political affairs and special assistant to Obama.

O'Malley Dillon is a co-founder of the political communications firm, Precision Strategies, which worked for Obama in 2012 and also represents the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation, according to its website.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said the hiring of O'Malley Dillon is a signal O'Rourke recognizes that he cannot run his presidential bid with the same seat-of-the pants style that became a trademark in his narrow loss to U.S.Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas last year.

"Getting someone who knows what it takes to win, especially an old Obama hand, is huge," Rottinghaus said. "Going from a U.S. Senate campaign to a presidential campaign is like going from the minor leagues to the major leagues. This says Beto knows he needs top talent."

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O'Rourke, a former three-term congressman, gave up a safe Democratic seat representing El Paso to challenge Cruz. He entered the presidential race March 14 and immediately hit the road to campaign in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primary and caucus states on next year's political calendar.

Days after saying he would join the presidential race, O'Rourke said he had raised $6.1 million in the first 24 hours after his formal announcement — the biggest first-day haul of any of the announced Democrats. He edged Bernie Sanders' $5.9 million, raised from 223,000 individual donors. The O'Rourke campaign said later that it received 128,000 unique contributions.

O'Rourke plans what he's calling a "launch" on Saturday with a morning rally in El Paso to be followed by two more home-state rallies — one in Houston that afternoon and a nighttime event in Austin, a block from the Texas Capitol.