CRUZ tops O’Rourke in Texas to keep Senate seat.

EL PASO, Texas — Sen. Ted Cruz fended off a spirited underdog challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke to win re-election on Tuesday in a Texas race that once seemed like a cakewalk but needed a late boost from President Donald Trump to help push the incumbent over the top.

Cruz began as the prohibitive favorite after his 2016 presidential run, but he suddenly found himself in a tough contest against O’Rourke, a little-known El Paso congressman and one-time punk rocker who became a national political sensation and shattered fundraising records despite shunning donations from outside political groups and pollster advice. Libertarian candidate Neal Dikeman trailed the others by a wide margin.

With 3,409 of 7,949 precincts reporting, unofficial returns were: Cruz..............3,364,171 O’Rourke. . . . . . . . . . 3,163,245 Dikeman............44,562

Cruz turned back O’Rourke with the help of Trump, his bitter rival in 2016. Trump took the unexpected step of traveling to reliably Republican Texas during crunch time, staging a Houston rally to energize his base for Cruz just two weeks before Election Day. The president praised the senator as “beautiful” and smart, a far cry from two years ago when he repeatedly mocked Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted,” made fun of his wife’s appearance and suggested that Cruz’s Cuban-born father had a hand in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Going into Tuesday’s election, both Cruz and O’Rourke said strong early voting statewide was a good sign for them. Early voting in the state’s 30 largest counties alone exceeded the total number of ballots cast during the 2014 midterm elections in Texas.

Cruz had the support of outside groups but was still being outraised 3-to-1 by the end of the race — a discrepancy he dismissed by saying the “hard left” was energized by outrage at Trump and “Texas will not be bought.”

A three-term House member, O’Rourke was virtually unknown outside his hometown of El Paso before announcing in March 2017 that he was taking on a seemingly unwinnable race against Cruz. A Democrat hasn’t won a Texas Senate seat since 1988, and no one from the party has captured any statewide office since 1994, the nation’s longest political losing streak.

But O’Rourke visited all 254 Texas counties and often drew larger-than-expected crowds, even in fiercely conservative areas. Preaching optimism and bipartisanship, he also refused to soften a liberal agenda that included calling for impeaching President Donald Trump, decriminalizing marijuana, implementing universal health care and gun control and relaxing federal immigration policies.

“My confidence is in the people of Texas,” O’Rourke told reporters Monday night, moments before staging a raucous rally with a Mariachi band at the University of Texas at El Paso, mere blocks from his home. “I think we have every indication, based on turnout so far, that we’re going to have a very good day tomorrow.”

His campaign drew national attention and a wide range of endorsements, including one in the last few hours of the race from Beyonce, the singer and Houston native.

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in nearly a quarter-century.

Cruz scoffed at the notion that O’Rourke could beat him. Still, late summer polls showed the challenger within striking distance. Though more recent ones indicate that the incumbent senator had regained his footing and maintained a modest lead, the race has been far closer than expected.

Cruz, who won 10-plus state contests during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, has long been considered a powerful and popular conservative in a state full of them.

But the battle with O’Rourke proved that many Texas conservatives remained angry after Cruz clashed bitterly with Trump in 2016 and refused to endorse him during the Republican National Convention. Though the senator has since become one of Trump’s staunchest defenders, the president nonetheless staged a massive rally in Houston just two weeks before Election Day to ensure his conservative base wouldn’t abandon Cruz.

“It’s the time for choosing. It’s the time for action. We know that the hard-left right now, they’re angry. They’re energized,” Cruz said Monday. “They’re filled with rage and hatred for the president. And that’s dangerous.”

As Cruz embraced the White House, O’Rourke concentrated on mobilizing young voters, Texans living along the U.S.-Mexico border and people who moved to the state from elsewhere.