Beto O’Rourke, buoyed by stout fundraising and a surprisingly favorable poll, has a renewed belief in miracles.

More than ever before, the Democratic congressman from El Paso is talking like beating incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz is no longer a pipe dream. . . .

This week a survey by Quinnipiac University showed O’Rourke trailing Cruz by only 3 percentage points, a ridiculous notion even a few weeks ago. Critics have questioned how the survey was conducted, but most analysts concede O’Rourke is running an effective campaign.

Oh, and O’Rourke has raised more than twice as much money as Cruz this year ($6.7 million vs. $3.2 million).

It didn’t help when Cruz wrote a slobbery tribute to President Trump for Time magazine, reminding us that his insincerity oozes from every pore. Cruz once called Trump  “a pathological liar,” “a narcissist” and “amoral.” But Cruz, I guess, is not the sort to stay mad at a guy who smeared his wife and accused his father of being part of the JFK assassination. Or at least not the sort to stand up to a man he once labeled a bully. Cruz’s hypocrisy was widely panned. The Dallas Morning News reported on the “torrent of mockery” that hit Cruz for the “nearly unmatched act of political humiliation for a man Trump branded ‘Lyin’ Ted’ in the primary, and whose father he’d accused of aiding in the Kennedy assassination.”

O’Rourke is proving to be a skilled politician, the antithesis of the conniving, slippery Cruz. O’Rourke, however, is no pushover. When Cruz chose to mock O’Rourke for using “Beto” rather than “Roberto,” O’Rourke pointed out that “Rafael” is Cruz’s given name. For good measure, O’Rourke posted a picture of his 4-year old self with his name proudly displayed on his shirt :

O’Rourke is as relaxed and cheery as Cruz is stiff and dour. If Democrats think of O’Rourke as a Kennedy-style Democrat, Cruz aptly plays the role of Richard Nixon, scowling and socially awkward. O’Rourke is only two years younger that Cruz but seems to be of almost a different generation. Fluent in Spanish and a former punk-rock guitarist, O’Rourke campaigns non-stop. As Newsweek reported, “O’Rourke paints Cruz as an out-of-touch Washington politician who is focused more on his presidential ambitions than his Texas constituents.” Implicit in O’Rourke’s message is that Cruz — like Trump — is about the past; and O’Rourke is about the future.

O’Rourke remains at a severe disadvantage. The Dallas Morning News continued:

A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide race in Texas since 1994. What’s more, there are as many as 850,000 more Republican voters in the Texas electorate than Democrats. And with few independent voters, overcoming that gap means changing the minds of some conservatives, a difficult task in the Lone Star State.

Still, if O’Rourke can rally millennials and Hispanics — in a state with more than 124,000 “dreamers” who are fully integrated into Texas’s economy and 4.5 million Texans who don’t have health insurance — Cruz’s stance against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and his efforts to abolish the Affordable Care Act will become liabilities.  If the blue wave is tall enough, O’Rourke might do the impossible — rid the Senate of Cruz, turn Texas purple (at least for this election) and demonstrate that insincerity only gets you so far, even in politics.

For a spirited start and his happy-warrior campaign, we can say well done, Congressman O’Rourke.