In the wake of his narrow loss in the Texas senate race against Ted Cruz, Beto O’Rourke has set the political world abuzz about what he will do next. A Politico article suggested that he could be “like Barack Obama, but white” in describing why many insiders are pushing him to run for president in 2020.

Beto O’Rourke should not run for president. However, he should absolutely run for senate again. Let me explain.

Ted Cruz is not as unpopular as you think

October 2018 poll from the University of Texas

One of the most apparent truths in American politics is that nobody likes Ted Cruz. While he’s universally despised by Democrats, even Republicans like Lindsey Graham said that, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” However, if you actually look at the numbers, this doesn’t really hold up with the general population. In the 2016 Republican primaries, he won 25% of the national primary vote and carried 11 states, after only appearing on the national scene four years earlier.

In Texas, he is even more popular. He was initially elected in 2012 by a margin of 16%, and in 2016, he won the presidential primary in the state handily, defeating Donald Trump by just over 17%. Most recently, a poll conducted by Morning Consult showed that Cruz had a +14 approval rating (49–35).

Combining all of these data points, Cruz doesn’t come across as an unusually popular candidate, but he also doesn’t come across as an unusually unpopular candidate. He falls about where you would expect for a conservative in a conservative state trending blue. While it is easy to get caught up in media narratives and internet memes about how hated Ted Cruz is, the numbers just don’t back it up.

John Cornyn is not as popular as you think

October 2018 poll from the University of Texas

When people contrast Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Cruz is generally seen as the slimy, unlikable Tea Partyer, while Cornyn is usually seen as more of the bland, moderate politician with a wider appeal. This narrative may not be entirely false, but it’s also not as cut and dry as people assume.

In the same Morning Consult poll that gave Cruz a +14 approval rating, Cornyn only had a +15 approval rating (42–27). Of course, some of that is accounted for by a higher percentage of undecideds/don’t knows, which would most likely be wiped out in a competitive election. To see where those undecideds fall, I used another pair of polls by the University of Texas, also conducted in October. These had Cruz and Cornyn at 47–42 and 39–34 respectively. In both cases, most of those who neither approved nor disapproved fell into the moderate category. Among moderates in general, Cruz was somewhat less popular than Cornyn, (26–53 vs 26–40), but moderates in both cases skewed against the Republican candidate.

So while feelings might be less intense towards Cornyn than Cruz, the trends are largely still the same. Democrats and Independents dislike both of them.

In past elections, Cornyn also hasn’t shown unusual strength. Running in 2014 as an incumbent going against a nobody, he only got 61.6% of the vote, Meanwhile, Greg Abbott received 59.3% received running as a non-incumbent against a challenger that had served in elected office before. While this was not a bad result for him by any means, it was also not a particularly great one.

Beto got a lot of votes, but he could get a lot more

Map made by the wonderful J. Miles Coleman

Even though he ended up losing, it’s hard to get across how well Beto O’Rourke did. This is the closest thing Texas has had to a competitive Democratic statewide race in years, and it was done in a way that was unabashedly liberal. A lot of this was done by generating enormous turnout in big cities and their suburbs, as seen in the map above. However, there were also areas where he under-performed comparatively.

The most notable two areas are along the Rio Grande and in Houston. (Houston’s deficit is a bit overblown on this map, as he greatly increased the turnout from 2014, he just under-performed the 2016 turnout.) What these two have in common is their high population of minorities, most notably Latinos. I do not mean to imply that Beto did not do well among Latinos. CNN’s exit polling, while of arguably unreliable, showed him winning that group handily. However, it is also clear that his campaign was more adept at turning out white voters in the suburbs than minority voters in the cities and along the Rio Grande.

However, this would be good news for a 2020 bid. Many of the voters in these groups tend to turn out at much higher rates in presidential elections than in midterm elections, even in a year as Democratic-friendly as 2018. The people that Beto could not get out in 2018 are more likely to come out by default in 2020, and the added energy of a presidential election could increase the turnout even more.

Trump might be even more of a problem for Republicans

The same poll that had Cruz and Cornyn approval up by about five points in October had Trump only up by three points (48–45). This is not great for a Republican in Texas, especially given the fact that (a)the economy is doing pretty well and (b) this poll was taken right after the Kavanaugh hearings, an event that generally shored up the Republican base across the country. Of course, it is impossible to accurately predict what the economy or the news cycle will look like two years from now, but there is plenty of room for Trump to fall. If the economy starts to take a downturn, that will be especially felt in Texas, a state that has consistently relied on strong growth to keep its economy moving. If that growth slows down or reverses, that will not be good news for Trump.

A competitive senate election helps Democrats in the house

Map by J Miles Coleman

This is a point that was made this year, and it it showed itself to be correct. In TX-32 and TX-07, Democrats won huge victories in seats they might have struggled with without the Texas focus that Beto brought. The hidden story of all of this is the huge number of districts that Beto got unexpectedly close in, leading to unsettling margins for incumbent Republicans.

In seats like TX-03, TX-10, TX-22, TX-23, and TX-24, Democrats did significantly better than expected, in no small part because Beto was such a strong candidate at the top of the ticket. Importantly, a lot of this was done without much attention from the DCCC. As Democrats look for more red-to-blue seats to cement their house majority, having an established candidate like Beto at the top of the ticket would help those races immensely.

Texas is still getting bluer

Map by Kenton Ngo

The only reason that the 2018 senate election was competitive is that Texas is changing. People are pouring into the state, both from the southern border and from the rest of the country. Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin are among the ten fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country, and show no signs of stopping. While Cruz did win non-native Texas in general, the new residents of these particular areas specifically contributed to huge swings. Above, you can see that Tarrant County, containing Ft. Worth, went to a Democrats for the first time in decades.

This is unlikely to change or slow down. Ironically, the pro-growth policies that Republicans have supported are causing a huge growth in population that is likely to break their monopoly on the state’s government in the future. Beto only lost by about 220,000 votes. Meanwhile, Texas’s population grew by over a million between 2016 and 2018, and is projected to grow by just as much between 2018 and 2020. If those voters lead just slightly Democratic, that combined with the general turnout increase of a presidential year would be more than enough to make up that deficit.

Conclusion

If Beto were to run in 2020, there is no guarantee that he would win. Texas may be trending towards Democrats, but it is still a red state. On top of that, a presidential year could also bring out some Republicans that didn’t come out in 2018. However, of all the potential candidates that might run in 2020, Beto is about the best that Democrats have to offer. It is also probably the best thing that Beto can do as a politician. He would be unlikely to get anywhere in a presidential primary, and going back to the house is probably not an option at this point either. Beto 2020 should be a thing, just not Beto for President.