WASHINGTON — For all the buzz Beto O'Rourke has gotten about a possible White House bid since his near miss against Sen. Ted Cruz this month, some Democrats are also starting to scoff.

If O'Rourke couldn't win in his home state, this line of reasoning goes, how could he hope to beat Donald Trump in 2020?

"If Beto O'Rourke wants to go and run for president, God bless him, he should put his hat in and make his case. But, he lost. You don't usually promote a loser to the top of party," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday on MSNBC, becoming the highest-profile Democrat yet to air doubts about the excitement swirling around El Paso congressman.

On Thursday, a report surfaced that the youth wing of the New Hampshire Democratic Party has invited the Texan to meet voters in the state that hosts the first primary of 2020. The O'Rourke camp hasn't responded.

Iowa Democrats have already expressed interest in getting a glimpse. Some even mistakenly thought they had a few weeks ago, prompting comparisons between Beto-mania and Beatlemania.

A Morning Consult/Politico poll released two weeks ago showed O'Rourke running third among Democratic voters nationwide on their wish list for 2020, behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Pollsters view such surveys as little more than a test of name identification so early in the process, and O'Rourke had skyrocketed to national renown, picking up steam with Democrats after a viral video from a campaign stop at which he defended NFL football players kneeling to protest police mistreatment of minorities.

On Wednesday, a trio of Democratic strategists based in New England said they are forming a political action committee aimed at generating interest in O'Rourke, and encouraging him to run — something he ruled out all the way through Election Day in Texas, when he fell short by 2.6 percentage points and 219,000 votes out of 8.2 million.

"Beto can win," they wrote. "Our goal is to show Beto that there is support for his candidacy, starting here in New England."

On Monday, his firm "no" became "Anything is possible."

"Running for Senate, I was 100 percent focused on our campaign, winning that race," he told reporters outside a town hall meeting with constituents in El Paso. "Now that that is no longer possible, you know, we're thinking through a number of things. Amy and I made a decision not to rule anything out."

One reason Democrats see potential for O'Rourke in a crowded presidential field is that he displayed a rare gift for inspiring donors nationwide.

He smashed through all fundraising records for any Senate candidate anywhere ever. He had a $38 million haul in one three-month period alone on his way past the $70 million mark. A final post-election disclosure due next week will push the total even higher. He outspent Cruz roughly 3-1.

CNN commentator Chris Cillizza sees O'Rourke as a "top five contender for the nomination" if he runs in 2020.

At election post-mortem conferences in the capital, the Texan's feat — putting a scare into Cruz and Texas Republicans, who haven't lost a statewide race since 1994 — made his prospects a top-of-mind topic.

"There's a Beto factor out there," Donna Brazile, the former Democratic Party national chairwoman, said at a conference hosted Thursday by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

Tweaks to the primary schedule put a higher premium on fundraising than in years past.

After the initial, relatively inexpensive contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada during February 2020, the race moves to "Super Duper Tuesday" on March 3, with balloting in Texas, California, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Vermont.

The first four states will test organization and enthusiasm. Competing in California and Texas will take serious money, and that might not be easy to gather in a splintered field.

O'Rourke aides have indicated that he spent whatever he raised for the Senate race, tucking nothing aside for a future campaign. But his track record suggests he could crank up the money machine more effectively and quickly than potential rivals, among them Julian Castro, the Obama administration housing secretary and former San Antonio mayor.

"We're looking at a wide-open contest," Brazile said.

Emanuel served in Congress and ran the Democrat's congressional campaign arm before a stint as White House chief of staff under Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, Obama himself touted O'Rourke as an "impressive young man who ran a terrific race in Texas," and noted an attribute that can be elusive, and essential, for a politician: authenticity.

"What I liked most about his race was that it didn't feel constantly poll-tested," Obama said. "It felt as if he based his statements and his positions on what he believed."

The former president even compared O'Rourke to himself, favorably, in a taping of The Axe Files, a podcast produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN with his former strategist, David Axelrod.

"The reason I was able to make a connection with a sizable portion of the country was because people had a sense that I said what I meant," he said. "What I oftentimes am looking for first and foremost is, do you seem to mean it?"