Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democrat whose near miss Senate bid last year catapulted him to national fame, said on Tuesday that he would decide by the end of February whether to run for president in 2020.

In an interview in Times Square with Oprah Winfrey, who prodded him to join the race throughout their chat, Mr. O’Rourke said family considerations were the only obstacle to a campaign for the Democratic nomination.

“I have been thinking about running for president,” he said, to considerable applause inside a small theater where Ms. Winfrey was taping a special with Mr. O’Rourke and other boldfaced names like Bradley Cooper and Melinda Gates.

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“And what’s the conclusion?” she pressed. “Are you running?”

He equivocated a bit, wondering aloud if he could “be that person” to play the role of national unifier, to “bring this country together around the big things that we know we should be able to do.”

“Yes,” Ms. Winfrey said, performatively impatient. “Will you be running?”

Mr. O’Rourke said he wanted to be sure his family was cleareyed and supportive before he committed to anything. Ms. Winfrey was not satisfied.

“Where’s Amy?” she said, scanning the crowd for Mr. O’Rourke’s wife, who was seated behind Mr. Cooper.

In the months since his narrow defeat in the race against Senator Ted Cruz, Mr. O’Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso, has become a wild card in the prospective primary field, weighing whether his message of generational uplift and red-state liberalism would translate among national Democrats. Some progressives, wary of his big-tent approach, are skeptical that he can be trusted as an unswerving ally.

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Unlike many would-be rivals — who have either declared their intentions or are taking more traditional steps toward a run, like building campaigns-in-waiting and assembling early-state teams — Mr. O’Rourke has done little formal preparation for a bid. Instead, he has driven around the country, alone, interacting with strangers and publishing journal entries online about his travels.

Much of the conversation with Ms. Winfrey centered on his deliberations since the midterms, which have included a meeting with former President Barack Obama, who famously benefited from the Oprah imprimatur during his own White House run.

“He was very generous in sharing what his thought process was leading up to that decision,” Mr. O’Rourke said, adding that Mr. Obama had not explicitly encouraged him to run.

Mr. O’Rourke digressed for a moment to recognize how surreal his circumstances had become, less than two years after entering his Senate race as a mostly-anonymous congressman.

“Even saying these words, it’s hard to believe that I met with Barack Obama and I’m saying it to Oprah Winfrey,” he said.

“You seem like you’re getting ready to run,” Ms. Winfrey said, wrapping up the interview.

He smiled, declining to push back. The two hugged.

Mr. Cooper was on next.

“I hope he runs,” the actor said after taking his seat. “We need inspiration.”

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