O’Rourke has largely avoided attacking Cruz directly in the run-up to his campaign, and he insists that the anti-Cruz message will be a minimal component of his platform. 
 
 
 
 “I know it’s part of how you’re supposed to run campaigns, but I just don’t get fired up being against something or somebody,�? he said. “We learned in 2016 that being against somebody, pointing out that this other candidate is bad, is not a strategy. People have already made their judgment about Ted Cruz; there’s nothing I can add to that. What they want to hear from me, and rightly so, is what are you going to do?�? 
 
 But he is not afraid to attack Cruz’s record when pressed. 
 
 “Having a junior senator who has been focused for the last four years on running for president has left Texas ill-served, unrepresented, and not achieving what we can in the Senate,�? O’Rourke said. “Having someone who puts party and ideology before the country literally means we shut the government down instead of making the government work for the people it’s supposed to.�? 
 
 Cruz and O’Rourke have both introduced bills to institute a cap on the time members can serve in Congress. But O’Rourke is often quick to point out a key distinction: He has imposed a term limit on himself, vowing to leave Congress in 2020, while Cruz has made no such commitment. 
 
 “You've got to walk the walk,�? O’Rourke said. “The B.S. detector is so much more finely tuned than most politicians give people credit for.�? 
 
 Cruz is expected to bring back several key figures of his 2016 presidential campaign, a combative team known for its no-holds-barred approach. He has hired Bryan English, his former Iowa director during the 2016 campaign, for his re-election efforts, and former campaign manager Jeff Roe is expected to be heavily involved, too. 
 
 Sure to re-arise in the race are O'Rourke's two arrests from the 1990s, charged with driving under the influence and breaking and entering. But Reyes beat that drum relentlessly in the 2012 race, and it didn't derail O'Rourke's campaign. O'Rourke was not convicted and has attributed his run-ins with the law to youthful mistakes. ||||| The road to a Democratic Senate majority in 2018 runs through Texas — yes, Texas. 
 
 Facing a grim midterm map, Democrats are desperately trying to put enough GOP-held seats in play to take advantage of Donald Trump’s unpopularity and carve a credible path back to Senate control. The odds are so long that Democrats must pin their hopes on taking out Ted Cruz in the reliably conservative bastion of Texas. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Their first ray of hope is the entry of three-term Rep. Beto O’Rourke — a 44-year-old former hard rock musician and internet entrepreneur who speaks fluent Spanish — into the race on Friday. Though Cruz is universally known, Democrats insist he’s not invincible, pointing to the first-term Republican’s poor polling numbers and prolonged focus on running for president. 
 
 And they say O'Rourke is formidable enough that they can make a case to donors that they actually have a shot at winning the state — and the Senate overall. 
 
 “People want to win and they want to play offense. And Texas represents that,” O’Rourke said in an interview earlier this month. “Texas is how you win back the Senate.” 
 
 For the first time in several election cycles, control of the Senate is not up for grabs barring a massive anti-Republican wave. Already facing a four-seat deficit, Democrats have to defend 25 seats, including five in conservative states that voted overwhelmingly for Trump last year and five more that he carried by a narrower margin. 
 
 The GOP, by contrast, has to protect just nine seats. After Arizona and Nevada, Texas is probably the most enticing opportunity, given the demographic challenges the party faces in states like Tennessee, Nebraska and Mississippi. 
 
 Republicans say that once again, Democrats are getting ahead of themselves. After major wins in conservative states in 2012, the party has lost races that they tried to contest in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina and South Dakota. 
 
 Republicans acknowledge that eventually Democrats will be competitive in Texas if the GOP doesn’t do a better job of courting minority voters. But they say a $100 million race against Cruz — the amount Democrats estimate they'll need to spend — won't cut it. 
 
 “I know Beto. And he’s a good guy. But I think this is a suicide mission,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, another Texan and a two-time chairman of the party’s Senate campaign arm. “We haven’t elected a Democrat statewide since … 1994.” 
 
 If Democrats can legitimately put Texas in play — still an if — it would be an important moment for the party going into the next election. Raising money for 2018 would be a lot easier if they can inspire donors with a message of potentially taking the Senate, as opposed to just stanching the bleeding. 
 
 Still, senior Democrats are quick to tamp down expectations about their chances in the Lone Star State. Last year, Democrats had a favorable map and were bubbling with confidence about their prospects of winning the Senate — only to experience a disaster on Election Day. 
 
 Their focus is on reelecting endangered incumbents and keeping the GOP from a filibuster-proof majority in 2019, which would allow Republicans to run roughshod over Democrats. 
 
 “We’re realistic. Our approach is, No. 1, to shore up the blue line we have in the Senate right now,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Wild things can happen in 2018. We can be very competitive in Texas.” 
 
 O’Rourke will be going up against a singular figure in Cruz. The 46-year-old senator quickly made his mark in the GOP as a take-no-prisoners conservative: He led the party into a government shutdown, branded Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar and infamously declined to endorse Trump at the Republican National Convention, before eventually coming around. Since the election, Cruz has been a more cooperative presence in the Senate. 
 
 Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) is mulling a primary challenge against Cruz from the center. That could damage Cruz and force him to expend resources with O’Rourke waiting further down the line. 
 
 Privately, Republicans believe McCaul will back off since Trump won the election and McCaul can’t blame Cruz’s feud with Trump for costing the GOP the presidential race. McCaul refused to answer questions about whether he will challenge Cruz. 
 
 “I just don’t want to talk about any of this,” McCaul said. 
 
 But O’Rourke does. 
 
 “He’s been very busy running for president since he was elected to the Senate. Which is fine for him. It hasn’t been especially good for Texas,” O’Rourke said. 
 
 Cruz declined an interview for this story. In a statement, he said: "I welcome [O'Rourke] to the race, and will continue to work every day to earn and keep the trust of Texans across our great state. I'm confident that Texans want a senator who will lead the fight for freedom." 
 
 The affable O’Rourke cuts a unique profile in the House. He recently spent two days in a car with Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) driving from Texas to D.C. after a snowstorm. The two livestreamed the entire ride and took questions from constituents along the way. 
 
 “People want to win and they want to play offense. And Texas represents that,” Rep. Beto O’Rourke said in an interview earlier this month. | AP Photo 
 
 O'Rourke says he won’t accept PAC money in the race against Cruz, which could put him at a severe disadvantage given national Democrats’ focus on defending the 10 incumbents from states that Trump won. 
 
 O’Rourke acknowledged the disadvantages he faces going in, from fundraising to low name recognition to the state's conservative tilt. But he pointed to his last major race, when he upset longtime Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes in a 2012 primary. 
 
 “I was running against 100-to-1 odds,” O’Rourke said. “You don’t know until you do it.” 
 
 O’Rourke and Cruz have some similarities: They both believe in term limits and have annoyed their party leaders, though O’Rourke has done so in far less strident ways than Cruz. Most notably, O’Rourke has sought distance from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s messaging campaigns on Obamacare, concluding bluntly: “That shit doesn’t work.” 
 
 O’Rourke could conceivably have a primary challenge himself in Rep. Joaquin Castro. But Texas Democrats and state strategists believe that Castro will likely pass now that O’Rourke is in. Unlike O’Rourke, who has said he will serve only until 2020 in the House, Castro hasn't promised an end-date there. 
 
 Castro, who speaks with O’Rourke frequently, insists he's still weighing his option and plans to decide by the end of April. 
 
 “We both agreed that we would come to our own decisions about the race and go from there,” Castro said in an interview Wednesday. 
 
 The fact that young, promising candidates are mulling runs in Texas offers Democrats hope that their party’s fortunes are changing in the nation's second most populous state. 
 
 “Texas is going to be competitive. The question is whether 2018 is that moment,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “It might be the combination of Cruz’s profile and the changing demographics.” 
 
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 But Republicans remember the likes of Wendy Davis, whose much-hyped 2014 gubernatorial run ended in a 20-point blowout. National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner said Democrats' are in for a similar ending in 2018. 
 
 “And we [Republicans] plan on a very competitive election in California,” Gardner said sarcastically.
– Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to the US Senate in 30 years, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Beto O'Rourke wants to end that drought—by taking down Sen. Ted Cruz. The US representative from El Paso officially entered the race against the former presidential candidate Friday. O'Rourke isn't well known outside West Texas, but that's probably about to change. Politico describes him as a "44-year-old former hard rock musician and internet entrepreneur." O'Rourke used to play guitar for a punk rock band that included a future member of Grammy-winning band The Mars Volta, the Dallas Morning News reports. O'Rourke also wrote a book advocating for the legalization of marijuana and is described as "free-spirited." Democrats pretty much need O'Rourke to unseat Cruz to have any hope of taking control of the Senate in 2018. And that's a whole lot easier said than done. Texas' other GOP senator, John Cornyn, says O'Rourke is on a "suicide mission." And Texas' GOP spokesperson summed up his feelings in one word: "Who?" But O'Rourke isn't discouraged. "I’m under no illusions this will be anything but hard," he tells the Morning News. "Nothing I’ve ever done that’s amounted to anything has been easy." O'Rourke plans to win by doing what he's already been doing: traveling around, especially to Republican strongholds, and listening to voters. He tells the American-Statesman he wants to "learn from people ... everywhere because everyone deserves something better."