Former President Obama on Tuesday praised Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) as an “impressive young man.”

Speaking at a recording session of his former strategist David Axelrod’s “The Axe Files” podcast, Obama said the El Paso congressman “ran a terrific race” in his Senate bid against Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzCruz blocks amended resolution honoring Ginsburg over language about her dying wish Trump argues full Supreme Court needed to settle potential election disputes Press: Notorious RBG vs Notorious GOP MORE (R-Texas).

“It felt as if he based his statements and his positions on what he believed,” Obama said. “And that, you'd like to think, is normally how things work. Sadly it's not.”

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O’Rourke’s effort to unseat Cruz catapulted him into the national spotlight, sparking widespread calls for him to take on President Trump in 2020.

The three-term congressman achieved stunning fundraising hauls and lost to Cruz by just 3 points — a shockingly close race in the state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in decades.

A top Democratic fundraising bundler described O’Rourke as “Obama, but white” in an interview with Politico on Monday, a comparison that the former president did not deny.

“The reason I was able to make a connection with a sizeable portion of the country was because people had a sense that I said what I meant," Obama said, telling Axelrod that O’Rourke is one of several candidates who he thinks fits that description.

“We've got a number of people who are thinking about the race who I think fall in that same category,” Obama said.

O'Rourke has not announced any intentions to jump into the 2020 White House race. If he were to enter, he would be a part of what is likely to be a very crowded Democratic Primary field, with maybe more than a dozen candidates ready to throw their name in the mix.