WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz will face a Democratic challenger in 2018.

El Paso Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a relative newcomer on the Texas political scene with a colorful background as a former tech entrepreneur and punk rocker, launched his longshot campaign Friday in hopes of becoming the first Texas Democrat elected to the Senate in three decades.

O’Rourke has been openly considering a run since early November, and he has toured the state in recent months while barely veiling his intentions.

In an interview this week with The Dallas Morning News, O'Rourke said he's aware of the improbable odds he faces but had a gut-level determination to get involved in the race.

“I’m under no illusions this will be anything but hard in a primary and anything but hard in a general election. Nothing I’ve ever done that’s amounted to anything has been easy,” O’Rourke said. “My heart’s in it, I want to do this, I'm driven to do it. I'm not poll-testing it. I'm not consulting with consultants."

"I've tried to let the people drive this decision.”

First elected to Congress in 2012, O’Rourke has faced unlikely odds before. He upset incumbent Rep. Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary for his House seat, a race that at times turned bitter and divisive. Even his first run for elected office, for the El Paso City Council in 2005, required an improbable win over a two-term incumbent.

“What we’re doing now is going to be very similar on a much larger scale and is going to be that much tougher,” O’Rourke said. “But we’re ready for it.”

Punk rocker turned techie turned congressman

O’Rourke’s first experience trying to get exposure in a crowded field came as the guitarist for punk rock band Foss. The El Paso group included drummer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, who went on to play for Grammy Award winners The Mars Volta, but O’Rourke decided to put his Columbia education to more cerebral use.

After working on technology startups in New York for a few years, O’Rourke moved back to El Paso in 1998 to start one. Stanton Street Technology remains in business and is owned and operated by his wife, Amy.

No one from El Paso in either political party has won statewide office in Texas. Remarking on his travels around the state in recent weeks, O'Rourke described what most Texans would consider West Texas — Midland and Odessa — as “East Texas for us.”

Battling Cruz

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 28: (AFP OUT) U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) (R) and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway (L) engage in conversation prior to the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump at a reception for U.S. Senators and their spouses in the East Room of the White House on March 28, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

O’Rourke has largely avoided attacking Cruz directly in the run-up to his campaign, and he insists that the anti-Cruz message will be a minimal component of his platform.

“I know it’s part of how you’re supposed to run campaigns, but I just don’t get fired up being against something or somebody,” he said. “We learned in 2016 that being against somebody, pointing out that this other candidate is bad, is not a strategy. People have already made their judgment about Ted Cruz; there’s nothing I can add to that. What they want to hear from me, and rightly so, is what are you going to do?”

But he is not afraid to attack Cruz’s record when pressed.

“Having a junior senator who has been focused for the last four years on running for president has left Texas ill-served, unrepresented, and not achieving what we can in the Senate,” O’Rourke said. “Having someone who puts party and ideology before the country literally means we shut the government down instead of making the government work for the people it’s supposed to.”

Cruz and O'Rourke have both introduced bills to institute a cap on the time members can serve in Congress. But O'Rourke is often quick to point out a key distinction: He has imposed a term limit on himself, vowing to leave Congress in 2020, while Cruz has made no such commitment.

“You've got to walk the walk,” O’Rourke said. “The B.S. detector is so much more finely tuned than most politicians give people credit for.”

Cruz is expected to bring back several key figures of his 2016 presidential campaign, a combative team known for its no-holds-barred approach. He has hired Bryan English, his former Iowa director during the 2016 campaign, for his re-election efforts, and former campaign manager Jeff Roe is expected to be heavily involved, too.

Sure to re-arise in the race are O'Rourke's two arrests from the 1990s, charged with driving under the influence and breaking and entering. But Reyes beat that drum relentlessly in the 2012 race, and it didn't derail O'Rourke's campaign. O'Rourke was not convicted and has attributed his run-ins with the law to youthful mistakes.

Bipartisanship

Though O’Rourke remains largely unknown outside of El Paso, a livestreamed bipartisan road trip he took with Republican Rep. Will Hurd of San Antonio a couple of weeks ago prompted some of the most extensive media coverage he has received since taking office.

U.S. Reps. Will Hurd (left) and Beto O'Rourke drove from San Antonio to Washington, D.C., after Hurd's flight was canceled. They held a town hall via Facebook Live on the way.

The highlights for O’Rourke from his pre-campaign tour of the state didn’t come in the Democratic strongholds of South Texas or Austin or Harris County, but in places like College Station. There, in a staunchly conservative town few Democratic candidates visit, 120 people showed up for an event at Rosa’s Mexican Restaurant and kept identifying themselves as Republicans who had never even spoken to Democrats, but simply wanted government to function better.

“There’s something that I feel everywhere, and not just in the usual places, that tells me this is possible,” O’Rourke said.

When he visited another Republican stronghold in Midland, he attracted 100 people on short notice to Grub Burger Bar and earned a rare positive editorial the next day in the Midland Reporter Telegram.

“First of all, let’s congratulate the congressman for being able to find Midland,” the paper wrote. “For way too long, Democrats have avoided Midland, admittedly a Republican stronghold. He made an appearance and lived to tell about it. Come 2018 and beyond, we would encourage his left-wing colleagues to follow his example.”

The respect O’Rourke has earned from Republicans transfers to the halls of Congress, too. Many Texas Republicans admit they like O’Rourke personally, even if they think that likability can only take him so far.

“He’s a nice guy; he’s a friend of mine,” said Rep. Roger Williams, an Austin Republican. “But he can’t win. Of course I’ll be supporting Sen. Cruz. His message is the Texas message.”

Sen. John Cornyn, the senior Texas Republican who has not always seen eye to eye with Cruz, echoed that sentiment.

“I like Beto O’Rourke,” Cornyn said. “He is somebody I’ve worked with and will continue to work with. But if he thinks he can beat Ted Cruz, I think he’s sadly mistaken.”

Republican leaders in the state express minimal concern about the race. Asked for comment about O’Rourke, Texas GOP spokesman Michael Joyce responded, “Who?”

Awaiting Castro

O’Rourke may face a Democratic primary challenge from Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who is expected to decide whether to launch his campaign by the end of April. Castro, 42, and O’Rourke, 44, entered Congress in the same year and have spoken often and amicably.

O’Rourke described Castro as “very talented, very committed to service, and someone who has provided an important perspective for this country.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Tex., gives his thumb up as he speaks during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Thursday, July 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (AP)

Thus far, Cruz’s team has appeared more interested in attacking Castro than O’Rourke, even turning the news of O’Rourke’s announcement into an opportunity to strike at his potential primary opponent.

Someone please tell @JoaquinCastrotx that he's no longer a rising star so stop acting like one. Muscled out by Beto? Pathetic display. https://t.co/mK8TFCqzq4 — Jeff Roe (@jeffroe) March 29, 2017

But in the hours before O’Rourke made his announcement, Cruz world began ratcheting up the heat on O’Rourke, labeling him as “more liberal” than Wendy Davis, the much-hyped 2014 gubernatorial candidate for Texas Democrats who ended up losing to now-Gov. Greg Abbott by 20 percentage points.

Finally nat libs found a candidate more liberal than @wendydavis ! meet @RepBetoORourke will they sacrifice electability for liberalism? — Jeff Roe (@jeffroe) March 31, 2017

Cruz sent out a fundraising email to supporters timed shortly after O’Rourke’s campaign website went live, describing the challenger as an “unabashed liberal.”

Asked about O’Rourke in the Capitol on Thursday, Cruz would only offer a wry smile.

Financial disadvantages

The difficulty of O’Rourke’s “brutal” 2012 campaign was compounded by the fact that “no one in their right minds would spend a penny on me outside of El Paso,” he said.

He is likely to face similar headwinds in this campaign. At the end of 2016, O'Rourke had nearly $400,000 on hand, a smaller war chest than some state Legislature candidates, while Cruz begins his re-election efforts with more than $4 million, according to campaign finance records.

U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke speaks at the Texas delegation breakfast during day four of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, July 28, 2016 at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News (Staff Photographer)

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, predicts O’Rourke will need to raise up to $10 million this summer to show he can compete.

“If you don’t have the money then you simply cannot reach the people who you need to reach,” Rottinghaus said. “He needs to start immediately on getting his message out and beginning to develop a structure.”

But O’Rourke earned his first endorsement Friday. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal grassroots group allied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent a fundraising email to its one million members, including 49,000 in Texas.

“Beto O’Rourke knows how to fight and win a David-and-Goliath style fight because he’s done it before,” the group said. “Ted Cruz will have big-money Super PACs on his side. But Beto O’Rourke has shown how to get his message out to the people — and defeat entrenched incumbents.”