WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz, lagging badly in fundraising, lashed out at his Democratic challenger on Friday over immigration and impeachment, painting Rep. Beto O’Rourke as a radical while portraying his positions as more extreme than they really are.

The senator asserted, for instance, that O’Rourke wants to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. O’Rourke has said he would be open to the idea, but more recently he has explicitly rejected calls by some fellow Democrats to eliminate ICE.

Cruz also accused him of pushing to impeach President Donald Trump -- a prospect that O’Rourke has never gone out of his way to promote.

"In the past week, he has come out aggressively for impeaching Donald Trump. ...That’s what he wants the next two years to be is just an impeachment circus that grinds the federal government to a halt," Cruz asserted on the Michael Berry Show, on Houston’s KRTH-AM.

Incumbents coasting to reelection don’t generally engage challengers so forcefully during the mid-summer doldrums. But O’Rourke is nipping at Cruz’s heels in polls, and has surged ahead in fundraising -- as Cruz has noted in recent appeals to donors that call the news “VERY BAD.”

The most recent polls show Cruz ahead by about 8 percentage points, on average. That's not a huge cushion in a state where Republicans haven't lost a statewide election in 24 years.

And it’s a far cry from Cruz’s 16-point win in 2012.

On the fundraising front, O’Rourke banked $10 million in the most recent three-month reporting period, more than twice as much as Cruz. He has $4 million more, in cash, than Cruz does. In his 15 months as a Senate candidate, he has raised nearly as much as Cruz has raised in six years.

“Even though O'Rourke is running to the left, he's outraising us. He's the No. 1 Democratic fundraiser in the country,” Cruz noted on KRTH.

Cruz has pounced on impeachment as a wedge issue.

.@BetoORourke looking to raise even more far-Left $$, yet again calls for impeaching @realDonaldTrump This partisan extremism may resonate great in Hollywood, but it doesn’t reflect the views of the vast majority of Texans. #RecklessAndOutOfTouch https://t.co/v4HH6TQ8gp — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 17, 2018

The contrast between the candidates is certainly sharp. The senator vehemently opposes impeachment of Trump. Within days of Trump’s inauguration he was warning conservative activists that Democrats would be banging the drum to remove the president.

When asked, O'Rourke has said for months that he would vote for impeachment, based on his view that Trump likely engaged in obstruction of justice. Last October he said conditions weren't yet ripe for impeachment but expressed sympathy for the idea. By April, he said he was ready to vote for articles of impeachment but wouldn't push for it himself.

He cited the firing of the FBI director and other steps Trump has taken to stymie investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and alleged collusion between his campaign and Russians.

On Tuesday, O’Rourke reiterated his support for impeachment when asked whether Trump’s handling of the summit a day earlier with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin had made him feel any more sense of urgency.

"Standing on stage in another country with the leader of another country who wants to and has sought to undermine this country, and to side with him over the United States -- if I were asked to vote on this I would vote to impeach the president," O'Rourke said in response to a question from The Dallas Morning News. "Impeachment, much like an indictment, shows that there is enough there for the case to proceed, and at this point there is certainly enough there for the case to proceed."

Cruz retweeted The News' report on his rival's comments and called him an extremist.

“O'Rourke has decided that the wedge issue is just run so far to the left that he energizes every far left liberal in the state,” Cruz asserted on Friday.

Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren don’t support impeachment, Cruz added.

“If he was running in Massachusetts, he'd be to the left of Elizabeth Warren. ...That's a pretty remarkable place to be when you're running in the state of Texas,” he said.

Contrasts abound

There are plenty of genuine contrasts between the candidates’ positions. Cruz highlighted a number of those on Friday, too.

They disagree strongly on the direction the Supreme Court should take. Both have used the current vacancy to remind voters of the stakes in their contest, with GOP control of the Senate now at 51-49.

On gun rights and gun violence, Cruz touts his fierce defense of Second Amendment rights. He has used his perch on the Judiciary Committee to derail limits on assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. O’Rourke has called for curbing access to some weapons after gun rampages in Texas and other states in the last year.

"He tweeted out how proud he was that he has an F rating from the NRA -- not a D-minus, not a D, an F,” Cruz said Friday.

Cruz also used the controversy involving ICE to bash O’Rourke, ramping up a line of attack that he’s pursued for days.

The senator asserted that he and other Democrats are “open to or they want to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency -- the agency charged with enforcing our immigration laws.”

O’Rourke has not advocated an end to enforcement of immigration laws. As recently as Wednesday, he said explicitly that he rejects the idea of abolishing ICE.

“I don’t support the abolishment of ICE,” he tweeted as the House debated a GOP resolution expressing support for the agency, which has been under fire for its handling of child migrants and role in the family separation crisis.

I don’t support the abolishment of ICE, but it’s wrong to pass leg that praises some of the practices that need reform. Those of us who call the border home, including ICE officers & border patrol agents who live in our communities, know we can do better than current policies. — Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) July 18, 2018

But two weeks ago, O’Rourke did say he’s open to moving ICE functions to another agency, even if that shuffle technically would entail its elimination.

"I'm open to doing whatever it takes," he said in an interview with KUT. "If it's reorganizing the Department of Homeland Security and changing the functions of ICE, having greater accountability, abolishing that agency altogether, that's fine. But there will still have to be enforcement of our immigration laws in this country. So whether you want ICE to do it or you want to go back to Immigration and Naturalization Services, whether you want the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do that -- someone is going to enforce our federal immigration laws."

Cruz also sought to tar O’Rourke as a darling of Hollywood, pointing to a handful of celebrities who are frequent foils for conservatives.

"Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker wore a "Beto for Texas" button at a New York film festival in May.

Less than two months after O’Rourke jumped into the race, Rosie O’Donnell announced that she had donated as much to his effort as the law allows.

Out of touch liberals from across the US are trying to turn TX blue. We won’t let them. #CruzCrew, #KeepTexasRed https://t.co/yu7n6Z6MSO pic.twitter.com/xGdKn3WbvC — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 16, 2017

Roughly 70 percent of the Democrat’s donations have come from Texas, compared to just 50 percent for Cruz. Both have scooped up campaign cash repeatedly in California.

"I think the circle he's in -- he's surrounded by the far left. He's done Hollywood fundraiser after Hollywood fundraiser. He's got Rosie O'Donnell and Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren and Chelsea Handler, all supporting him. "That's the world he knows, that's the message he reflects."

In March, Bill Maher hosted O'Rourke on his HBO show and rattled off a number of quotes about Cruz, prompting the congressman to agree that the senator is a "giant a-hole."

One of those quotes came from Franken, a former Minnesota senator who wrote in his memoir: "I probably like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz."