WASHINGTON — TMZ trails him around the capital. Fans still check his Facebook page to see if he's going live again anytime soon. Democratic activists keep trying to lure him to Iowa and New Hampshire, and campaign operatives are sending him resumes, uninvited.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke is getting more buzz as a potential White House contender than people who've served as governor, senator or even vice president and secretary of state, even though he's still stinging from falling short last month to Sen. Ted Cruz.

"The fact that we came close doesn't diminish the bitterness of the loss," he said, acknowledging the very real doubts about whether someone who couldn't win election in his home state deserves promotion to commander in chief.

"Oh yeah. I think that's a great question," he said. "I ask that question myself."

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, discussing a future he insists he hasn't sorted out yet, House colleagues walk past calling out "Beto! Beto!" or "Go 2020!" — razzing the El Paso Democrat who raised a stunning $80 million in his near-miss in Texas.

1 / 3Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, speaks with Tom Benning, Washington correspondent for The Dallas Morning News, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 12, 2018.(Todd J. Gillman / Staff) 2 / 3Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, speaks Nov. 26, 2018 at a town-hall meeting in El Paso, where he began to publicly shift away from his vow not to run for president.(Alfredo Corchado / Staff ) 3 / 3 Rep. Beto O'Rourke surrounded by news media after voting in El Paso on Nov. 6, 2018. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)

He's avoided interviews since Election Day, and insists that he hasn't even begun the process of deciding whether to heed the siren song, though that hasn't stopped him from consulting with the likes of Barack Obama and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

"I just don't feel comfortable talking to anybody in Iowa or New Hampshire, because I don't want to stoke," he said. "I just truly have not made a decision or even really begun the serious work of making a decision, so I just don't want to lead anyone to think that we're doing something or not doing something."

But doing nothing doesn't quash the speculation.

Invitations keep coming in and polls show continuing uptick for the non-candidate.

A CNN/Des Moines Register poll released Saturday night showed O'Rourke one of just three Democrats with double-digit support among likely caucusgoers in Iowa, at 11 percent — lagging only former Vice President Joe Biden, at 32 percent, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at 19 percent.

The Texan topped a straw poll of progressive activists released Dec. 11 by MoveOn.org, edging out Biden, Sanders and Kamala Harris, with the rest of the pack trailing in single digits.

Name ID is a big part of that at such an early stage. Still, that's a critical ingredient and now that O'Rourke has it, he can afford to bide some time.

A national poll of Democrats released by CNN on Friday put O'Rourke in the top tier for the first time, though well behind Biden and Sanders.

"I want to talk to [his wife] Amy and see what she wants me to do in terms of time with kids and family in the house in El Paso ... and then just interesting things that you can do," he said. "Amy and I had this expectation that after the sixth of November, one way or another things would kind of die down and we could regroup and you know, catch up.

"But in some ways, things have intensified," he said.

Over and over, he said he wants time to "regroup" after nearly two years on the road.

"I'd love to take a backpack up into the Gila Wilderness" — a vast expanse in New Mexico, a hundred miles from El Paso — "and just spend some time thinking through stuff," he said.

But he also seems to pine for another kind of trail, the sort that leads to higher office.

"As brutal as it was, and it was, and as tough as it was on our family, and it was incredibly tough," he said, "there's also just some really amazing, transcendent, fun moments that are unlike anything that we've done in our lives or are likely to get to do again in our lives, short of running for something else."

1 / 8Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., prepares to take a selfie with a supporter at a post-midterm election victory celebration in Manchester, N.H., on Dec. 8, 2018.(Cheryl Senter / AP) 2 / 8In this Oct. 28, 2018, photo, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker speaks at a get out the vote event hosted by the New Hampshire Young Democrats in Durham.(Cheryl Senter / AP) 3 / 8Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to reporters after talking to students in the Wind Technology program at Des Moines Area Community College on Dec. 4, 2018, in Ankeny, Iowa.(Charlie Neibergall / AP) 4 / 8Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaks with media after touring the Paulson Electric Company on Dec. 4, 2018, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.(Charlie Neibergall / AP) 5 / 8In this Aug. 16, 2018, photo, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock speaks at the Des Moines Register Soapbox during a visit to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines -- a near mandatory stop for anyone running for president.(Charlie Neibergall / AP) 6 / 8Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, runner up for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, at an event for a congressional candidate in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, on Oct. 21, 2018.(KATHRYN GAMBLE / NYT) 7 / 8U.S. Rep. John Delaney, a Maryland Democrat, speaks at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding in Clear Lake on Aug. 10, 2018. He'd been running for president at that point for more than a year and had already campaigned in all of Iowa's 99 counties.(GEORGE ETHEREDGE / NYT) 8 / 8Presidential candidate John Delaney's campaign RV outside the Surf Ballroom and Museum, site of the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding in Clear Lake on Aug. 10, 2018.(GEORGE ETHEREDGE / NYT)

Hype casts a shadow

Donors and campaign operatives who stand ready to join a presidential campaign are staying on the sidelines, awaiting O'Rourke's next move.

In New Hampshire, Paul Hodes, a former congressman and an early backer of Obama, said that just as in 2008, "there is a real interest in a younger, fresher, bolder face for the Democratic Party. ... That hunger for new fresh faces plays to Beto's advantages."

A proven ability to generate support in a state like Texas is a huge plus, he added. "The place where Democrats need to make inroads is not on the left coast or the right coast."

By email, he offered to show O'Rourke around whenever he's ready to visit New Hampshire, and he spoke by phone with O'Rourke's chief strategist.

It's a standing offer.

"If I'm an example of someone who might be a Sherpa for somebody, I haven't said who I'm supporting, and I'm eager to meet Beto. How's that for an answer?" Hodes said.

A Draft Beto group created three weeks ago by a handful of New England activists set an organizing meeting Saturday morning in Manchester.

Plenty of party insiders are eager to see if O'Rourke lives up to the hype.

"There are some people I know up here who are very much hoping that O'Rourke runs," said Kathy Sullivan, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and a member of the party's national committee. "He's a very interesting candidate. Hopefully he makes his mind up sooner rather than later."

The deadline is roughly April or May, because "at some point, people start getting a little restless."

And O'Rourke will have to explain his loss.

In Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's tart assessment, "You don't usually promote a loser to the top of party."

"It doesn't disqualify you," Sullivan said, and O'Rourke gets slack for his ability to raise money and drive up turnout enough to help flip congressional and legislative seats.

"Whether that carries over into a presidential race ... is a question," she said. "That was a very focused Senate race. There were a lot of people nationally that wanted to beat Ted Cruz, because it was Ted Cruz."

Outreach

The only conversations he initiates about his future, O'Rourke said, are with his wife and a handful of "very close friends."

"There is a dynamic of this that is bizarre," he said.

Just then, a New York Democrat, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, walked by, calling out "Go 2020!"

"Like that," O'Rourke said. "Or TMZ. Or the MoveOn thing that came out. Amy and I are just like, in what universe does that happen? And I also keep thinking that there's going to be this epiphany. I'm just supposed to know what to do next."

Even if he's not actively seeking input, he has spoken with some of the party's most influential figures in the last month.

He met with Obama on Nov. 16 at the former president's office in Washington. He spoke by phone with Sharpton. Andrew Gillum, who narrowly lost a race for Florida governor, set up a call, according to NBC News. They agreed they both want someone "young and unapologetically progressive" to lead the party in 2020.

O'Rourke wouldn't talk about the conversation with Obama, other than to say he didn't ask for any campaign advice.

"I really didn't," he said. "It was just an amazing honor to spend time with him. I had met him as a member of Congress in smaller groups but I had never had a chance to really talk to him. I feel very lucky to have done that."

Veterans of the Obama campaigns and administration have offered their services. O'Rourke aides are keeping track but "not in any coordinated or organized way."

"If we were to decide to do something, I would want to make sure it was really organized," he said.

1 / 4Rio Salazar (left) comforts her friend and Beto O'Rourke volunteer Rebecca Guerreo of El Paso at the El Paso Democrat's Election Night party in El Paso on Nov. 6, 2018.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer) 2 / 4Rep. Beto O'Rourke hugs his wife, Amy Sanders, after his defeat by Sen. Ted Cruz on Nov. 6, 2018, in El Paso.(Eric Gay / The Associated Press) 3 / 4Supporters listen to Rep. Beto O'Rourke concede the Texas race to Sen. Ted Cruz at Southwest University Park in El Paso on Nov. 6, 2018.(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 4 / 4Thousands of supporters attended an election night thank you party for U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Beto O'Rourke on Nov. 6,, 2018 in El Paso.(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Still processing the loss

His paid team is down to two: Chris Evans, his communications director, and David Wysong, chief of staff and chief strategist. The rest, he said, he's urged to get new jobs.

"`Please do not wait on me,'" he tells them. "Because I have no idea what I'm going to do and I don't have any idea when I'm going to decide that."

He's still processing the Cruz race.

Did he come so close because he did as well as possible? Or could he have done better?

"There's a million things that I could have done differently, said better," he said. "On the whole I feel like we ran the race that we set out to run — no pollsters, no PACs, just trying to meet with and be with everyone everywhere in the state.

"But, yeah, I could have done better. That's just the way I'm built. I just believe that everything, anything is possible, and that was possible. So, yeah. It's tough."

Flurry of activity

If and when O'Rourke joins the pack, he'll be months behind other contenders.

Julián Castro, an Obama housing secretary and former San Antonio mayor, has been making the rounds for months in Iowa and New Hampshire and formed an exploratory committee on Wednesday.

Lots of others have also appeared at dinners and house parties.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey headlined a major New Hampshire Democrats event last week. He's been scouting talent. So have Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. San Francisco-based billionaire Tom Steyer posted an anonymous but easily traced job listing for state campaign directors for "a high-profile political campaign based on the West Coast."

Four contenders will appear Thursday in Des Moines at a Progress Iowa holiday party: Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, was in Iowa this month. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, has been there and New Hampshire in recent weeks.

Paparazzi

But O'Rourke's the one being stalked by TMZ, a celebrity-chasing website whose paparazzi have caught up with him around Washington, D.C.

A Nov. 27 video follows O'Rourke from an escalator at Reagan National Airport to the taxi stand. The off-camera photographer, walking backwards throughout, peppers him with questions. O'Rourke stays chipper, and outwardly unfazed.

What did he think about Obama comparing himself to O'Rourke? "I think that's cool that he said that."

Did you dream of being president? "Not that I ever really thought about. I dreamed about being in the Beatles when I was a kid."

That, he recounted later, "was one weird experience. You get out of the security checkpoint and there was TMZ and, you know, I'm just traveling by myself carrying my bags, and so I was really defenseless."

"I just think it's so hilarious that TMZ would have shown up at the airport," he said. "I know all that will die off."

Maybe.