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Iowans are ready for Beto O'Rourke, a new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.

O'Rourke, the retiring U.S. representative from Texas who narrowly lost a U.S. Senate race to sitting Republican Ted Cruz, came in third place in a head-to-head poll of 20 Democrats actively seeking or considering a 2020 presidential run.

Eleven percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers say he is their first choice for president. He follows former vice president Joe Biden (32 percent) and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (19 percent).

The poll of 455 likely Democratic caucusgoers has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. It was conducted Dec. 10-13.

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Fifty-three percent of respondents view him favorably — he was one of only four potential candidates to crack the 50 percent threshold — and 11 percent view him unfavorably. Thirty-six percent say they are unsure.

"What was striking was just how uniformly the demographic groups support him," said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., the firm that conducted the poll. "You expect some candidates to have particular constituencies that are the reasons for their numbers being as high as they are. It’s a stronger position when it’s more universal support. That’s what he’s got."

Sixty-four percent of those who identify as liberal view him favorably as well as 48 percent of moderates and 57 percent of progressives.

O'Rourke, 46, raised an unprecedented amount of money during his Senate race — close to $70 million in his 18-month campaign — and rose from near-obscurity to come within 2.6 percentage points of defeating Cruz in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in 30 years.

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Even in defeat, Democrats across the country who followed his rise through viral social media posts called on him to run again in 2020 — this time, for president.

But O'Rourke has not yet decided whether to run, saying only that he is not ruling anything out. According to a report from the Washington Post, he met recently with former President Barack Obama.

Iowans get 'silence' from O'Rourke

Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats, has twice issued invitations to O'Rourke to visit with his members, who make up Iowa's largest county party operation. The response?

"Literally, silence," Bagniewski said.

"(The invitations) are really based on the request from our members of the Polk County party," Bagniewski said. "So when you’ve got people putting up yard signs for him already, bringing back bumper stickers for him already, talking about him the way that they do — you know, it’s a necessity at that point."

Matt Paul, a longtime Iowa political operative who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Iowa campaign as state director, said he would expect the initial excitement surrounding a potential O'Rourke candidacy would be "sky-high" in Iowa.

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If he does run, Paul said he would encourage O'Rourke, now something of a pseudo-celebrity, to resist the urge to do big events and instead focus on the retail-style stops that fueled his Texas Senate run and have come to epitomize the Iowa caucuses.

"I would say the best thing for him, and where Iowa caucus operations really shine, are in these smaller communities and smaller events where Iowans have an opportunity, not in an arena-like setting, but in a cafe or a community center, to have a conversation with these candidates," Paul said. "So, as difficult as it would be for a candidate like Beto, I would work very hard to do small events in rural places and give Iowans some proximity and allow them to see him up close."

The 2020 Iowa caucuses are set for Feb. 3.

About the Poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted Dec. 10-13, 2018, for the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 455 registered voters in Iowa who say they will definitely or probably participate in the 2020 Democratic caucuses.

Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted 1,838 randomly selected active voters from the Iowa secretary of state’s voter registration list by telephone. The sample was supplemented with additional phone number lookups. Interviews were administered in English. Responses for all contacts were adjusted by age and congressional district to reflect their proportions among active voters in the list.

Questions based on the sample of 455 voters likely to attend the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents—such as by gender or age—have a larger margin of error.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to the Des Moines Register, CNN, and Mediacom is prohibited.