Every campaign has its defining moments.

In the nail-biter between Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O’Rourke, it’s too soon to know which of the debate quips, attack ads and viral videos made the difference.

There were many ingredients in this epic battle between a tea party darling who was runner-up for the presidential nomination and a charismatic and unabashedly liberal congressman who managed to put a scare into Republicans in a state they’ve controlled for a quarter century, smashing the record for money raised by any Senate candidate ever, anywhere.

“I’m just amazed that this race is as close as it is,” said Randy Chambers, 59, a Cruz supporter who owns a business in Granbury.

Hardly any voters beyond the western tip of Texas had heard of O’Rourke.

Cruz, by contrast, had a national reputation as a conservative champion who didn’t mind ruffling feathers. Engineering a government shutdown will do that.

Texas Republicans seethed when he refused to embrace Donald Trump at the party's 2016 convention. The explicit endorsement would wait three months, though they've been closely allied ever since.

As for O'Rourke, he was so obscure two years ago that most Texas Democrats figured they'd send Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio to challenge their bête noire.

Two weeks before jumping into the race in March 2017, O’Rourke made a huge leap in renown thanks to a snowstorm that socked in the East Coast.

He and Rep. Will Hurd, a San Antonio Republican, stranded 1,600 miles from the Capitol, rented a Chevy Impala and embarked on a 36-hour road trip broadcast live on Facebook — a technique O'Rourke has employed throughout this campaign.

The show of civility amid the rancor of Washington drew national attention.

"He's so inspirational. You can tell he really cares. He's just a good person,” said retiree Billie Williams, who went to hear O'Rourke in Lewisville on Friday. She sees him making history, because he’s all about "uniting people.”

The road trip nurtured an image of an affable post-partisan figure that Cruz would spend the rest of the campaign working to dismantle.

From left: San Francisco 49ers players Eli Harold (58), Colin Kaepernick (7) and Eric Reid (35) kneel during the national anthem before their a game against the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 2, 2016, at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. (Nhat V. Meyer / Tribune News Service)

'Nothing more American'

The single most galvanizing moment of the race came at an Aug. 10 town hall event in Houston.

A man who identified himself as a veteran told O’Rourke that he is deeply offended when NFL players take a knee during the national anthem. O’Rourke readily conceded that others may disagree, even as he noted that the protests were an effort to call attention to police brutality involving unarmed black men, women and children.

"I can think of nothing more American than to peacefully stand up, or take a knee, for your rights, anytime, anywhere, in any place,” he said.

The crowd cheered. Within days, tens of millions of people viewed the exchange. Basketball great LeBron James called it “must watch!!!" Kevin Bacon was among the celebrities who gushed. Ellen DeGeneres booked O’Rourke on her show and showered him with praise.

Donations were already pouring in. This opened the spigot even wider. O’Rourke collected $38 million in the three months ending Sept. 30, a record quarter for any U.S. Senate candidate ever, pushing his total to $70 million, also a record.

It was a bonanza for the other side, too.

Cruz hit O’Rourke fast and hard. He could think of plenty of things more patriotic than disrespecting the national anthem, he said — like supporting soldiers and police. O’Rourke’s war chest swelled even as Cruz began to rebound from a summer of dead heat polls.

By the end of the campaign, he’d boiled his put-down to a line that invariably brings crowds to their feet: “In Texas, we kneel to pray and we stand for the national anthem.”

But there were lots of other key moments along the way.

1 / 3Beto O'Rourke talked to state Sen. Royce West (left) before speaking to the crowd during South Dallas With Beto! at Good Street Baptist Church in Dallas on Sept. 14, 2018.(Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3An audience member held a phone with a Beto sticker on it as Beto O'Rourke spoke to the crowd during South Dallas With Beto! at Good Street Baptist Church in Dallas on Sept. 14, 2018. (Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3A large photo of Botham Jean is displayed with photos and cards on one of the tables in his childhood home in Castries, St. Lucia on Sept. 25, 2018. Botham Jean was shot and killed in his apartment by off-duty Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

Wake-up call for O'Rourke

By February 2018, O'Rourke was a Democratic star — but many non-Anglo Texans were frustrated at a perceived lack of outreach.

"We're not looking for a savior, just an opportunity to have our voices heard," Jara Butler, a black Democrat from Pleasant Grove, told him at a meet-and-greet in north Oak Cliff.

O’Rourke won the three-way March primary with a modest 62 percent. His support was especially tepid in South Texas.

Grumbling boiled over in April at a DeSoto town hall meeting. Activist Bobbi Clavon questioned whether O’Rourke cared about minority voters.

It was a wake-up call.

"I'm hearing some really tough things I need to hear," O’Rourke said.

He brought Butler and Clavon on board. He hired black and Hispanic field workers across the state, eventually assembling an army of volunteers to knock on doors in communities of color.

Slowly he began to raise his profile with black voters.

The peak came in September at Dallas’ Good Street Baptist Church, the city’s only church to host the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement.

With 2,000 people packing the pews, O’Rourke launched into an emotional speech, sweat dripping from his face. He called for better public education and a health care system sufficient to curb infant mortality.

Hours earlier, Dallas police revealed that they’d found marijuana in the apartment of Botham Jean, who’d been shot and killed days earlier by his neighbor, off-duty Officer Amber Guyger. She had entered the apartment thinking it was hers, and many of those at the church saw an effort to shift blame from a white officer to an innocent victim.

O’Rourke channeled the outrage and electrified the crowd.

"How can it be, in this day and age, in this very year, in this community, that a young man, African-American, in his own apartment, is shot and killed by a police officer?" O'Rourke demanded. "And when we all want justice and the facts and the information to make an informed decision, what's released to the public? That he had a small amount of marijuana in his kitchen.”

The crowd jumped to their feet and roared approval.

“Years from now,” state Sen. Royce West said later, “people will be talking about the night Beto came to Good Street Baptist Church.”

1 / 2Rep. Beto O'Rourke, the El Paso Democrat challenging Sen. Ted Cruz, taped an episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that aired on Sept. 5, 2018. (Michael Rozman / Warner Bros.) 2 / 2Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree accused Rep. Beto O'Rourke of hostility toward law enforcement.(Julian Gill / Denton Record Chronicle)

Cruz hits 'Jim Crow' critique

If that cemented O’Rourke’s bond with black voters, it also gave Cruz ammunition for the case he’d been building that his rival held law enforcement in contempt.

Cruz had several data points, including the Democrat's brushes with the law in his 20s — a drunken driving arrest and another for burglary when he jumped a fence at a local college. O'Rourke's use of the phrase "new Jim Crow" when discussing racial disparity in the enforcement of drug laws also provided fodder.

At Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college near Houston, the Democrat invoked the phrase in a critique of policing:

“That system of suspecting somebody, solely based on the color of their skin. Searching that person, solely based on the color of their skin. Stopping that person, solely based on the color of their skin. Shooting that person, solely based on the color of their skin. Throwing the book at that person, letting them rot behind bars, solely based on the color of their skin. It is why, some have called this, and I think it is an apt description, the new Jim Crow.”

The Cruz campaign would soon be airing ads featuring Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree, blasting those remarks on Fox News.

“There has been a war on police officers for the last several years,” the sheriff said. “His rhetoric is divisive, it’s insulting and, most of all, it’s dangerous.”

Cruz slammed O’Rourke for hostility to police. Law-and-order Republicans responded.

“I’ve been a police officer for 35 years,” said Robert Taylor, 63, a candidate for justice of the peace who attended a Cruz rally in Amarillo last week. “It’s getting rougher than it used to be. It doesn’t help when you talk about doing away with ICE, and Jim Crow.”

1 / 4Alongside his wife, Amy Hoover Sanders, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El-Paso, answered questions from the media following his debate with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in McFarlin Auditorium at SMU in University Park on Sept. 21, 2018. Cruz did not participate in post debate interviews.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer) 2 / 4Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gives a kiss to his wife Heidi after a debate with Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) at McFarlin Auditorium at SMU in Dallas, on Friday, September 21, 2018. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/Pool)(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer) 3 / 4Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) makes his final remarks as Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) listens during a debate at McFarlin Auditorium at SMU in Dallas, on Friday, September 21, 2018. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/Pool)(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer) 4 / 4Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) looks and listens to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during a debate at McFarlin Auditorium at SMU in Dallas, on Friday, September 21, 2018. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/Pool)(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

First debate

Cruz and O’Rourke tussled for months over a debate schedule. When the long-awaited clash came, at Southern Methodist University on Sept. 21, sparks flew. Both had their moments, but it was Cruz who got a bounce in polls.

O’Rourke accused Cruz of being beholden to the National Rifle Association and hit him for resisting gun restrictions even in light of massacres such as the Santa Fe High School rampage in May.

"Thoughts and prayers, Senator Cruz, are just not going to cut it anymore," the Democrat said.

The senator came prepared.

He boasted that he’d secured funds for schools to buy metal detectors and said, “I'm sorry that you don't like thoughts and prayers. I will pray for anyone in harm's way" — a well-crafted comeback that resonated both with Second Amendment lovers and religious conservatives.

Cruz also parried O’Rourke’s efforts to tar him with family separations and the potential for mass deportation.

“His focus seems to be on fighting for illegal immigrants and forgetting the millions of Americans. You know, Americans are dreamers also,” the senator said.

Cruz also pushed his allegation about O’Rourke’s antipathy toward police, citing comments he’d made about the Botham Jean killing.

“Without knowing the facts, Congressman O’Rourke is ready to convict her, ready to fire her,” Cruz said, lamenting “a troubling pattern” of inflaming mistrust of police through “irresponsible and hateful rhetoric.”

O’Rourke accused the senator of trying "to confuse and to incite fear.”

He was on defense, though quick-witted enough to land the night’s sharpest punch.

Cruz — asked to say something nice about his opponent — lauded O’Rourke for sacrificing family time for public service. Then he called his opponent a socialist, albeit a sincere one.

The gratuitous jab reinforced the narrative that this was a brawl between a street fighter and Mr. Personality.

O’Rourke’s retort — “True to form” — inspired campaign buttons and a Twitter hashtag.

1 / 3U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (left), D-El Paso, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, debated again on Oct. 16, 2018, in San Antonio. (Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News) 2 / 3U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is fending off a challenge from U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso.(Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News) 3 / 3U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, is challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for his seat.(Tom Reel / San Antonio Express-News)

Second debate

The second debate on Oct. 16 was even more testy.

With Democrats fretting that O’Rourke had been too passive in the first debate, the challenger showed a more pugilistic side.

"Ted Cruz is for Ted Cruz," he said at one point. When Cruz asserted that he backs a $10 per barrel tax on oil, O'Rourke bristled and shot back, "He's dishonest. It's why the president called him `Lying Ted' and it's why the nickname stuck, because it's true."

Cruz quipped that "it's clear that Congressman O'Rourke's pollsters" had advised him to go on attack.

He used the Democrats’ agitation to reinforce a GOP talking point about left-wing anger and “mobs” that erupted during the just-resolved Supreme Court confirmation fight. He warned of "utter chaos" if O'Rourke, who has said he would vote to impeach Trump, got his way or if Democrats win control of Congress.

"Washington would be consumed by partisan investigations. That's not civility," he said.

Each succeeded in electrifying partisans. In that sense, the debates did more to propel turnout than to shift the advantage, though Cruz sees them as turning points.

“Two months ago there were almost daily media stories and profiles of Beto O’Rourke. They were just puff pieces. They were all just puppy dogs and rainbows,” Cruz told reporters last week in Lubbock. Then came the debates, “where the voters could actually see the substance and the issues. My record and Beto O’Rourke’s record are night and day.”

1 / 4President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Houston on Oct. 22, 2018, for Sen. Ted Cruz. (Doug Mills / The New York Times) 2 / 4Protesters chant outside President Donald Trump's rally for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by President Donald Trump at Toyota Center in Houston on Oct. 22, 2018, in Houston. (Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle) 3 / 4Supporters hold flags as President Donald Trump makes remarks during a campaign rally for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other Texas Republicans in Houston on Oct. 22, 2018. (Doug Mills / The New York Times) 4 / 4U.S. President Donald Trump greeted U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during a campaign rally at the Toyota Center in Houston on Oct. 22, 2018. (Saul Loeb / Agence France-Presse)

Trump to the rescue

By midsummer, Republicans were getting worried. O’Rourke was surging. His fundraising was torrid.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who'd chaired the Cruz presidential campaign and later, Trump's Texas campaign, quietly flew to Washington on a rescue mission. At the White House on July 25, he implored Trump for reinforcements.

On Aug. 31, the president announced that he would headline a rally for Cruz. Within weeks, Donald Trump Jr. and Vice President Mike Pence flew to Texas to prop up the senator.

Some 16,000 supporters filled Houston’s Toyota Center on Oct. 22 — not quite the “biggest stadium in Texas we can find,” as Trump had boasted, but still the second biggest crowd of the election. O’Rourke’s concert with Willie Nelson in Austin drew more than 50,000.

Trump called himself a “nationalist,” that night, a label often associated with fascism. That put Cruz on the spot.

His appearance gave Cruz a jolt. It also ensured the race would be a referendum on him.

“Ted's opponent in this race is a stone-cold phony named Robert Francis O'Rourke, sometimes referred to as Beto,” Trump said. “He pretends to be a moderate, but he's actually a radical open-borders left-winger.”

Kavanaugh confirmation

By the time Air Force One landed in Houston, Cruz’s poll numbers had rebounded, thanks in part to the rancorous Kavanaugh confirmation fight.

Cruz had a high-profile role in defending the nominee. And he drew sympathy when protesters drove him and his wife, Heidi Cruz, from an upscale Italian restaurant, shouting, “We believe survivors!”

Such tactics on the left galvanized conservatives. Cruz’s complaints about the outbursts are central to his stump speech.

“It’s out of control,” said Lynn Chambers, 54, who joined her husband at a Cruz rally in Fort Worth on Friday. She was visibly angry. “Are you OK with that? I’m not OK with that.”

U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., joined protesters near Tornillo in Texas to protest Trump's immigration policies. Next to him is U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, raising his arm. Outraged over the Trump administration's policy of splitting up families entering the country illegally, protesters marched June 17, 2018, to a shelter in Tornillo where children were being held outside this tiny farming community in West Texas, south of El Paso. (Alfredo Corchado / The Dallas Morning News)

Father's Day at Tornillo

As much as the Trump factor has loomed over the contest, some of the president’s moves made especially big waves in the Texas race.

Late last spring, the administration began pressing criminal charges against anyone caught entering the country illegally. The new zero-tolerance policy entailed separating thousands of children from their parents. Outrage grew as images spread of children in holding cages and tent camps.

On Father’s Day, O’Rourke led a protest at the Tornillo tent camp in the desert 40 miles from El Paso.

“We try to tell ourselves, this is not America, this is not us, this is not what we do," he said through a bullhorn. "But ladies and gentleman, at this moment, this is America, this is us, this is what we are doing."

https://twitter.com/toddgillman/status/1055522044878688256

O’Rourke’s esteem with Hispanic voters grew even as Cruz defended Trump’s harsh policies, blaming law-breaking migrants for the consequences on their children. Within days he backpedaled, calling for more rapid processing and deportation to avoid the need to separate families.

Months later, Cruz would harness conservative dismay over the so-called caravan of Central American migrants walking north through Mexico. He echoed Trump’s warnings about an invasion of would-be law breakers and tacitly embraced the president’s plan to deploy 15,000 active-duty troops to the border.

“The border is Numero Uno in Texas,” said Roger Schlegel, 73, a retired teacher wearing a red “Trump Swamp Clearing Co.” cap at a recent Cruz rally in Dallas.

Cruz mocked his rival, saying he’s so soft on illegal immigration that “He is waiting on the Rio Grande with welcome baskets and foot massages."