Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s (D-TX) impressive bid for the Senate fell short, but his concession speech shows why many don’t think his political future is over.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) described Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) as “cult-like” in the way that he’s garnered attention in his bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), The Hill reports.

Said Abbot: “He’s been a cult-like, very popular figure the way that he’s run the campaign, but you don’t vote on cult, you don’t vote on personality when you get to the U.S. Senate. You vote on the issues.”

The Austin American Statesman reports O’Rourke held a rally over the weekend attended by more than 50,000 people.

Beto O’Rourke showcased his air-drum skills following his debate with Sen. Ted Cruz as he rocked out to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” while waiting in a Whataburger drive-thru line.

Said O’Rourke: “This may be the best song ever written.”

David Wasserman: “There’s scant evidence that Beto O’Rourke’s 254-county tour has moved the needle much in rural Texas, where Democrats hope would-be Cruz voters will simply stay home. But it’s a different story in Texas’s upscale suburbs: private polling on both sides now shows O’Rourke substantially outperforming Hillary Clinton’s percentages in multiple highly college-educated districts near Houston and Dallas.”

“That’s serious cause for concern for Houston GOP Rep. John Culberson (TX-07) and Dallas GOP Rep. Pete Sessions (TX-32), who sit in seats Clinton carried and are already in the Toss Up column. But it also should be a wake up call for several other Republicans who haven’t had a competitive race before but sit in upscale suburban seats President Trump carried with less than 52 percent of the vote.”

The HuffPost got a copy of the first album from Texas U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke’s punk band Foss and concludes, “It’s not bad at all.”

The recording came from former bandmate Cedric Bixler-Zavala who said he stands behind O’Rourke: “I truly believe Beto to be the answer. He really gives a fuck.”

Texas Republicans mocked the cover of the album in a tweet last week.

Peter Hamby: “The hype emerging from the Democrat’s campaign points to something rather obvious: O’Rourke is good at this, way better than most of the Democrats sniffing around the next presidential race from the boring hallways of Capitol Hill. Whether he wins or loses his race—and yes, even if he loses—O’Rourke should be included in every conversation about the 2020 Democratic primary. That’s because, unlike most of the paint-by-numbers politicians in his party, O’Rourke actually understands how politics should be conducted in the Donald Trump era: authentic, full of energy, stripped of consultant-driven sterility, and waged at all times with a social-media-primed video screen in mind. O’Rourke is making a bet that running on his gut and giving voters a clear choice against Cruz, rather than just a mushy alternative, offers not just a path to victory in Texas but an antidote to the entire stupid artifice of American politics in the Trump era.”

“The most appealing thing about O’Rourke is both delightfully uncomplicated and extremely powerful: he talks about politics like you and your friends do.”

“When Amy and I were first talking about running for Congress in 2011-2012, we decided that we would do term limits, and not serve more than four years. In part it was, ‘I just don’t want you to be an asshole; I haven’t met somebody in this line of work who doesn’t become one, that doesn’t think that they are so important only they can do it.'”

— Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), in an interview with the Austin Chronicle, explaining why he supports term limits.

Town & Country: “It’s not just the toothy grin, the tall stature, and the shock of hair swept over his brow. With a disdain for highly paid consultants, a willingness to travel to unexpected places, and an inspiring message for an extraordinarily divided electorate, it’s hard to look at O’Rourke and not think of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. He has been to all of Texas’s 254 counties — including ones no Democratic candidate has seriously contested in decades. If he can meet every person, knock on every door, he thinks he can win.”

Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) raised over $6.7 million for his U.S. Senate bid in the first quarter of 2018, “a staggering number that poses a new category of threat” to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Texas Tribune reports.

“The haul is easily O’Rourke’s biggest fundraising quarter yet, more than double his next-closest total for a three-month period. It also is more than any Democratic Senate candidate nationwide took in last quarter, O’Rourke’s campaign said.”

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]And that’s without taking any PAC money.[/alert]

Karl Rove: “Just as the media buildup about Democratic early voting fell short, so did the party’s highly touted U.S. Senate hopeful, Rep. Robert F. ‘Beto’ O’Rourke. National Democrats have hyped the telegenic El Paso congressman as a strong bet to upset Ted Cruz, the state’s junior senator. Mr. O’Rourke spent $4.2 million to win his primary with 62%. But he lost 103 of the state’s 254 counties to Edward Kimbrough, a retired Postal Service employee, who spent $785 and received 15%, and Sema Hernandez, who spent nothing—zero, zip, nada—and still got 24%. (Ms. Hernandez did have a Facebook page.) Mr. Cruz received twice as many votes in his primary as Mr. O’Rourke did in his.”

“It has been 24 years since Democrats won a statewide race in Texas. Absent a major GOP scandal, they’ll continue that losing streak this year as their statewide ticket is lackluster and—with the exception of Mr. O’Rourke—underfunded.”

New York Times: “It has been so bleak for Democrats in Texas that they define victory in terms of the size of their losses. A running joke in Mr. O’Rourke’s speeches is that he has almost convinced his mother, Melissa, a Republican, to vote for him.”

“But there is power in the giant-killer narrative and signs that his anti-campaign playbook campaign is working. He raised $2.4 million in the last quarter, and gets applause when he notes that was $500,000 more than Mr. Cruz took in.”

“He has a restless energy that has put him in 217 of Texas 254 counties, driving tens of thousands of miles, fueled by bad coffee and Hostess cupcakes that supporters bring him.”