That Ted Cruz’s challenger, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, is going to lose his 2018 Senate campaign in Texas is more or less a given.

However, an interesting theory has begun circulating amongst some that, while O’Rourke is still playing at being Texas’s next Senator, he actually has his sights set higher.

According to the Daily Caller, O’Rourke might be eyeing the Oval Office, and it seems Democrats are on board with the idea:

As the Senate race tightened to a margin of single digits in the primarily red state, speculation of O’Rourke entering the national political arena began to percolate. Later, O’Rourke was even included in CNN’s 2020 presidential poll, where he ranked as a top 10 contender. Tied with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, O’Rourke received 4 percent of the total vote. “Beto is running for president in 2020. I’ve been telling everyone this for months,” Jesse Kelly, a Houston talk show host and former U.S. Marine, tweeted Tuesday. “He’s not even trying to win in Texas. He has smartly build up his national profile and will finish this race with $20 million in the bank.”

There are clues pointing to the truth of this. According to the Daily Caller, O’Rourke has made history with his fundraising:

Accordingly, O’Rourke has received more campaign contributions in one quarter than any political candidate in American history. In the 3rd quarter of 2018, the El Paso congressman raised a staggering $38.1 million, bringing his total amount raised to $62 million. Comparatively, Cruz raised $12.4 million, bringing his total to $24.5 million and placing him as the third highest fundraiser of the candidates for Senate, according to The Dallas Morning News.

O’Rourke swears he’ll have no problems spending this money in trying to win a Texas Senate seat, and both candidates certainly are burning through their cash at a rate of $3 million a month, but O’Rourke knows that his campaign is likely a lost cause at this point.

Despite this, O’Rourke isn’t interested in sharing his cash with other Democratic candidates and flat out told everyone that he’ll be hanging on to his money. While it could be chalked up to the fact that O’Rourke has proven to the be the kind of guy who will obtain money through either shady or legit means, it seemed odd that he’d continue to throw money at a losing battle instead of helping push the blue wave with his excess cash.

As Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal noted, this was O’Rourke’s test of whether he’ll be the kind of guy who will help his team or the guy who has a larger goal in mind. The result seems to be the latter.

Test whether Beto wants to run for president in 2020 or be a team player for Senate Democrats. https://t.co/GS7iIW10cg — Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 12, 2018

Even the leftist media seems to be talking in more grandiose terms about O’Rourke than someone who’s trying to win a Senate race as evidenced by this overblown comment about O’Rourke’s campaign.

Beto O'Rourke's campaign has transcended politics to become something of a political-cultural phenomenon. https://t.co/PuVrc3wXFz — MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 18, 2018

With Democrats lacking any kind of opponent to throw up against Donald Trump, the left is probably desperate to find someone they can get behind. O’Rourke has been so propped up by the media, celebrities, and fellow politicians that the left has fallen head over heels in love with him. He walks, talks, and acts like former President Barack Obama, and the left would love nothing more than to bring back the good ol’ days.

O’Rourke’s politics weren’t going to fly in Texas, but O’Rourke has proven he finds a much friendlier audience on the national stage.

In short, time will tell, but at this point, it looks like O’Rourke might be gearing up for a 2020 presidential run.

(h/t: Daily Caller)