Updated at 2:50 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.: Revised to include a third advertisement from Cruz and a fundraising email from O'Rourke.

WASHINGTON — As polls show his challenger closing in, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has started buying television ads.

The Cruz campaign launched three TV ads Friday, the same day that the Cook Political Report, which does elections analysis, moved his race against Democratic El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke from "likely Republican" to "leans Republican."

Two ads, as reported by the Texas Tribune, directly attack O'Rourke on drug issues and connections to Democratic party leaders. The other, released by Cruz's staff, highlights Cruz's role in securing recovery funding after Hurricane Harvey.

Two polls that came out this week showed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's lead narrowing in his race against Democrat Beto O'Rourke — Quinnipiac University estimated a 6-point Cruz advantage, and Texas Lyceum called it a 2-point race. (2017 File Photo / Louis DeLuca)

In the first attack ad, Cruz touts a bill that he and U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, supported to expand drug testing for unemployment benefits. Trump signed the bill into law in March 2017.

Cruz contrasts his legislation with comments O’Rourke made in 2009 as an El Paso City Council member when he called for a discussion about legalizing narcotics in the United States.

“Beto O’Rourke said we should consider legalizing all narcotics, including heroin,” the ad says.

The ad language is more accurate than previous attacks Cruz has made on the topic.

Cruz claimed in a May 2018 tweet that O'Rourke proposed a "radical resolution" legalizing narcotics. The statement was rated "false" by the fact-checking organization Politifact because the resolution called for discussion but did not actually legalize narcotics.

With opioids ravaging so many American communities, Congressman Beto O’Rourke's radical resolution to legalize all narcotics—including heroin and other deadly opioids—is looking worse and worse all the time: https://t.co/VdwaYMccMn #TXSen — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 1, 2018

Politifact found that O’Rourke was quoted saying that ending a prohibition of narcotics “should at least be on the table, and so far it hasn’t.”

O'Rourke later walked back his statements and called the proposition "artless, and even inaccurate" in his 2011 book titled Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico.

“I only learned later that marijuana is not a narcotic, even though it was precisely that drug that I felt people would be most open to debating,” O’Rourke wrote.

O'Rourke supports ending the federal ban on marijuana and "ending the U.S. government's war on drugs," according to his campaign website.

The Texas Tribune reported that the attack ad on drug issues is running in Lubbock.

Another anti-O'Rourke ad echoes the drug legalization claim, and contends that O'Rourke is more liberal on some issues than Democratic party leaders. The second ad was first reported by the Texas Tribune.

Cruz characterizes O'Rourke's comment on legalizing narcotics and statements that he would vote to impeach President Donald Trump and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (which he has since backed away from) as more extreme than liberal Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

"If Beto O'Rourke's positions are too extreme even for them, he's just too reckless for Texas," the ad's closing lines say.

O'Rourke sent out a fundraising plea Friday calling one of the attack ads -- it's unclear which -- "as misleading and dirty as they come."

"We're going to keep this campaign positive, and in doing so we'll send an unmistakable message about the way campaigns should be run," the fundraising email continued.

The other spot highlights Cruz's work on Hurricane Harvey relief and will air in Beaumont. In 2016, Jefferson County voted for President Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, but only by 0.5 percent.

The release did not include how much the Cruz campaign spent on the ad purchases.

Senate seats in Texas are usually solidly red — the state hasn’t had a Democratic senator in 25 years. Cruz enjoys wide name recognition after his presidential bid in 2016. But O’Rourke has him worried.

Two polls that came out this week showed Cruz’s lead narrowing — Quinnipiac University estimated a 6-point Cruz advantage, and Texas Lyceum called it a 2-point race.

“There have been polls all over the place, but there is no doubt that the far left is energized and angry. And that is reflected in the record-breaking fundraising Congressman O’Rourke is seeing, as liberals all over the country are pouring millions of dollars into his campaign,” Cruz said after a committee meeting Wednesday. “We are taking the campaign very seriously.”

O'Rourke has spurned traditional television advertising, instead putting his time and money into online advertising and shoe-leather campaigning.

He has plenty of money for advertising, as he more than doubled Cruz’s fundraising in the second quarter of 2018, pulling in $10.4 million to Cruz’s $4.6 million.

O’Rourke released his first, online-only ad last week. The ad featured clips from livestreams of O’Rourke’s campaign events spanning every Texas county. His campaign spent a minimum of $26,100 and a maximum of $67,600 promoting the minute-long video on Facebook, according to Facebook data.

A New York University analysis of political Facebook ad archives found that O'Rourke was one of the top ad spenders on the platform. The data shows O'Rourke spent at least $194,400 on 377 ads between September 2014 and July 2018. The only other candidate in the top 10 list was President Donald Trump.

Paul Stekler, a professor of radio and television at the University of Texas at Austin, said O'Rourke's strategy makes sense given the high cost of sustaining a television presence in Texas' 20 media markets. O'Rourke is also the type of candidate who is more comfortable with hours-long, raw Facebook Live streams than glossy television spots.

"O'Rourke's campaign has got a social media strategy, and he's sticking to it," Stekler said. "It's worked for him so far, and that's what he's comfortable with."