After Beto O’Rourke came close to beating Ted Cruz in their thrilling 2018 Senate contest, Texas Democrats hoped they could use that momentum to oust John Cornyn in 2020.

But less than four months from the March primary, the Democratic race for Senate is a sleepy affair, with the major candidates struggling to find traction with voters, spark energy in the party’s base and offer a formidable alternative to Cornyn.

Four of the top five candidates got into the race late by today’s standards, and some of them still haven’t built out their field and fundraising operations. Their social media presence, a must in modern campaigns, is not big-league quality. Voters aren’t paying attention to the race.

“The hustle is missing from the candidates. It’s absent, and it’s weak,” said Julie Ross, a health care advocate and progressive activist. “They should take a page from Beto’s playbook and engage the entire state. Beto has raised the stakes, and the expectations are high.”

The five major Democratic Party candidates are former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell of Houston, Houston council member Amanda Edwards, former Air Force helicopter pilot MJ Hegar of Round Rock, activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Austin and state Sen. Royce West of Dallas.

Veteran Democratic consultant Colin Strother said that at this point in the 2018 primary, O’Rourke had already visited 121 Texas counties.

“I bet the candidates combined haven’t been to 121 counties,” he said. “You just don’t see the level of activity you would expect candidates on this level to have.”

If the Democrats don’t step it up, Cornyn could have an easy ride to reelection.

That prospect led to longtime political consultant Harold Cook describing Cornyn as “the luckiest Republican in the United States Senate.” Cornyn watched Cruz’s tough fight and now benefits from a more alert GOP base.

Cook blamed the Senate candidates for the lack of enthusiasm about their upcoming primary.

“If there was anything of interest in that cave, people would be in that cave watching,” he said of the Democratic Party Senate race.

Of the more than dozen voters interviewed by The Dallas Morning News about the Democratic Senate contest, only one person was optimistic about the current state of the race.

“In three words — no star power,” said Frank Goley, a retired independent voter who lives at Robson Ranch in Denton. “Hence, no excitement or money.”

Tarrant County Democratic Party Chairwoman Deborah Peoples said the Senate candidates are works in progress and the situation would improve once the primary is settled.

“We have so many candidates right now that it’s about trying to separate the wheat from the chaff,” Peoples said. “As soon as we get a nominee we’ll all coalesce around that nominee.”

Aiming at Cornyn

Last year Cruz beat O’Rourke by 2.6 percentage points. In the aftermath Democrats turned their efforts to defeating Cornyn, the senior senator who’s represented Texas since 2003.

But who would be the Democratic Party champion?

O’Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso, opted to run for president instead of Senate. When his presidential candidacy ended Nov. 1, he declined to shift into a contest against Cornyn.

Julián Castro, former U.S. housing secretary and former San Antonio mayor, is running for president, not Senate. His twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, decided to remain in Congress.

One of the biggest problems for the candidates in the Senate race is the dream of base voters for O’Rourke, one of the Castros, or someone else to get into the contest.

Goley, for instance, balked at a column in The News explaining why Castro should remain in the presidential race, even though his prospects are dim.

“A very weak Democratic group is challenging the incumbent Republican senator from Texas, and Mr. Castro, in my opinion, would immediately rise to the top of this group and be a real threat,” Goley said in an email.

Catherine Casavant, a Democratic Party precinct leader and treasurer of the Women Organizing Women Democrats, said Cornyn is beatable, but only if the Democrats field the right candidate against him.

“It’s still early, but I haven’t seen that candidate yet,” she said.

Casavant’s concerns have been reflected in the few polls on the Senate contest.

An August Emerson College survey conducted for The Dallas Morning News found that “someone else” was leading the field over Hegar and other Senate contenders, though Tzintzún Ramirez had not announced her candidacy at the time.

The news didn’t get any better.

A University of Texas at Tyler poll conducted in November shows the candidates locked in a dead heat for the nomination. Tzintzún Ramirez led the survey with 9.4 percent, followed by Hegar at 8.5 percent, West at 8.3 percent, Edwards at 8.1 percent and Bell at 7.4 percent. A whopping 52 percent of poll respondents were unsure about the primary contest, while 6.5 percent wanted someone else in the race.

The overall margin of error in the Democratic Party portion of the poll, conducted online or with telephone calls, is 4.7 percent.

“It’s a wide-open race,” said Mark Owens, a UT-Tyler political scientist who helped conduct the poll. “Each of the candidates are finding ways to appeal to portions of the Democratic base and they’re appealing to voters at the same rate.

Breaking from the pack

The poll result is a setback for Hegar, who’s been in the race since April and has raised the most money. She’s cast herself as the fighter needed to beat Cornyn in November, and has the support of national Democrats looking for a Senate pickup in Texas. Hegar is considered moderate on issues related to improving health care and curbing gun violence. Polls show she’s strong with white voters, but is virtually unknown in communities of color.

Tzintzún Ramirez was the last announced candidate, so her showing in the UT-Tyler poll is encouraging, if also underwhelming.

An organizer who started the Workers Defense Project and the Hispanic advocacy group called Jolt, Tzintzún Ramirez is banking on her mobilization skills to help her win the primary and beat Cornyn. She’s the most progressive candidate in the contest, advocating a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons and Medicare for All. She hopes to spur young voters and voters of color to the polls.

West, who has served in the Texas Senate since 1993, has the most political experience in the race and is considered closer to a moderate than Tzintzún Ramirez and Bell. He has the opportunity to win big in North Texas, where his name recognition is significant, and he’s been trying to mine black voters across the state. He has the most political endorsements of any candidate because of his relationships with lawmakers and local officials.

Edwards touts her at-large council service in Houston and the large swath of voters she represents. Her policies are moderate, as she stops short of pushing for the abolishment of private insurance and does not support a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons.

Like Tzintzún Ramirez, Bell is an unabashed progressive on issues of health care, gun violence and education. The 2006 nominee for Texas governor has lost several races since then, but hopes to rebound by stringing together a coalition that will ultimately beat Cornyn.

“They’re not running against John Cornyn yet,” Owens said. “They’re trying to identify what the future of the Democratic Party might be.”

Cook said it was important for Democrats to perform well with fundamental campaign practices, like raising money, developing a field operation and creating a compelling message.

The nominee would then have the opportunity to break through with independent voters.

“The Democratic candidate has to narrowly and sharply make the race about Cornyn and Trump,” Cook said.

Strother said the absence of straight-ticket voting could help the Democratic nominee, but he warned that Cornyn is a different challenge than Cruz.

“Everybody hated Ted Cruz,” he said. “Not everybody hates John Cornyn.”

Ross, who volunteered for the 2018 campaigns of O’Rourke and Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, said the Democratic Senate candidates should talk about issues that affect Texas voters, such as poverty, affordable housing, health care and other quality-of-life staples.

“They need to make a name for themselves right now,” she said. “The message has got to be bipartisan. We came close with that kind of message last time. I haven’t seen anything that speaks to my heart the way Beto could.”

Issues aside, hurting the down-ballot candidates in the contest is the early March primary.

Texas moved its election to the first week of March to make its presidential contest relevant to a national audience.

But an early contest means that not only will down-ballot candidates be overshadowed by presidential contenders, but they also have less time to put together an effective campaign.

Consider that in 2012 Cruz had until a May primary to come from obscurity to beat then Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. The runoff for that race was Aug. 31, and by then Cruz mobilized enough tea party support to overwhelm Dewhurst, who started the race as the overwhelming front-runner.

“Right now the Senate candidates are hitting a wall,” said Ed Espinoza, the executive director of a liberal advocacy group Progress Texas. “Having the primary in March doesn’t help. It’s too soon, and the presidential candidates will get all the attention.”

Peoples, the party leader, remains hopeful.

“A lot of them don’t have good name ID, but they’re extraordinary candidates and any of them will be great to take on Cornyn,” she said.