Updated at 3:30 p.m. with comment from Congressman Beto O'Rourke and at 4:55 p.m. with comment from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

AUSTIN — The Florida man who allegedly sent pipe bombs to President Donald Trump's critics also had Rep. Beto O'Rourke and at least one other Texas lawmaker in his sights.

O'Rourke received several threatening Facebook messages from pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc earlier this year, campaign spokesman Chris Evans confirmed to The Dallas Morning News. Then, on Oct. 25, Evans said the FBI began sending dogs and agents to go through mail at O'Rourke's campaign office in El Paso.

At a campaign stop in Austin on Wednesday, O'Rourke said he felt safe despite the threats.

"We have got to continue to do our best to be good to one another, to try lead by example," he said. "I feel safe in this state. I feel like we do right and good by one another when given the chance. And we're going to continue to do that. And in fact, Texas is going to set the example for the rest of the country. This is how we bring the country together. Not perfectly. We don't get it right all the time. But we do a pretty good job."

Sayoc also researched mailing addresses for Rep. Poncho Nevárez, a Democrat who represents parts of Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border, he told The News. This week, a suspicious package was sent to Nevárez's Capitol office, spurring a brief evacuation

The News reached out to the O'Rourke campaign and Nevárez after learning that Sayoc might have targeted them. The local FBI field office who spoke to Nevárez referred The News to the national office, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sayoc was arrested last week after fingerprint and DNA evidence tied him to pipe bombs sent through the mail to several prominent Democrats and CNN's New York offices. He's been charged with five federal crimes, including illegal mailing of explosives and threats against a former president.

The suspect also kept a "hit list" of around 100 people and places he considered future targets, The Associated Press has reported, including The New York Times and one of its editors. On Wednesday, Evans said, "No one said, 'You are on a list,' but there was immediately a presence including agents and dogs who were at the office even as recent as today."

Evans said Sayoc's threats against O'Rourke, who is running for Senate against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, dated back several months.

"We received a threat via Facebook from that individual in April, a threat toward Beto, and we immediately reported it to the (U.S.) Capitol police," Evans said. "Then we turned over the message and the information and the threat to the FBI in July."

The messages, which were provided to The News, included photographs of O'Rourke with his wife and children and a warning to "hug your loved ones everytime [sic] you leave home. See you soon."

At a campaign stop in Lubbock on Wednesday, Cruz called the bomb suspect a "terrorist."

"Violence is wrong against anybody. This pipe bomber appears to be a deranged individual who was committing acts of terrorism. I'm glad they've caught him and I hope he is prosecuted and put away in jail for a long, long time," Cruz said. "The anger, the hatred, the vitriol we're seeing is not good for our country. ... Terrorism, violence has no place anywhere in the political spectrum. And I'm glad this terrorist was been apprehended and is being prosecuted."

Nevárez said he also was recently contacted about the bomb suspect. On Tuesday, Nevárez said he got a call from FBI agents, who told him his addresses were included on Sayoc's "portfolio of searches." Like O'Rourke, Nevárez told The News the FBI never explicitly said he was on Sayoc's list of potential future targets, but that the word "list" did come up in his conversations with the agents.

Later that same day, several offices at the Texas Capitol in Austin were briefly evacuated after Nevárez received a suspicious package. The package was screened and deemed not a threat to public safety. Nevárez said he doesn't know who sent it or whether it could have come from the pipe bomb suspect.

Nevárez, who lives in Eagle Pass, said he doesn't know why he would be a potential target and said he's considering what additional security steps he should take.

"Here I am, living my life, and there's this guy taking some steps to finalize me," Nevárez told The News. "It's demoralizing thinking somebody would want to do that. ... There's something about this that really shakes you."

Austin bureau chief Robert T. Garrett and Washington bureau chief Todd J. Gillman in Midland contributed to this report.