Can Beto O'Rourke take down Ted Cruz?

Probably not, but it's not impossible.

Brains has a "cold hard reality" piece for Texas Dems in general, not just Beto, but it's a good starting point.

The key link is to this Texas Politics piece.

Now, I'm planning on undervoting that race, but I can offer a sunnier scenario for Beto than it does.

Let's go back to 2010, and a GOP vote edge of just 630,000. Then, let's take the rest of Texas Politics' math straight up. IF Beto can flip 15 percent of GOP votes plus boost Donkey turnout 20 percent, it says that adds up to 800,000 votes. And he's up 170K by that math.

Is this realistic, even at the long tail of one end of a bell curve? Or is it too much?

We have three background issues at play.

One, is 2010 or 2014 a better assessment of Texas Republican vs Democrat midterm strength? In 2010, Tricky Ricky Perry was a multi-term incumbent governor. Plus side? Plenty of name recognition. Minus side? People were tired of him — on top of the tiredness that led to the four-person race in 2006, some of which he had overcome by 2010, tea partier types were even more tired than they were four years earlier. Abbott in 2014 was a fresh face and conservative darling. And, I don't think Bill White was that much better a Democratic candidate in 2010 than Wendy Davis in 2014.

Two, speaking of gov candidates, how much of a boat anchor will Lupe Valdez be? Two polls in the past week show her at 10 points or less of Abbott. How she does in her debate Friday could be key. She had better be heavily coached up, yet without making her "plastic."

Three, there was no Senate race in 2010. How that affected the midterm party gap vs. 2014 (Cornyn against a weak challenger) I don't know.

Bobby Kennedy and Rafa the Dominionist have two more debates set. The Sept. 30 town-hall style could give Beto a pitch or two right in the wheelhouse. That was scrubbed due to Kavanaugh fallout with no definite replacement time set. That makes the Oct. 16 debate, complete with two full weeks of run-up, must-see TV.

I still remain skeptical of Beto's ability to turn out Hispanic voters, given that he refuses to play old-time retail politics in the Valley, as I have noted before. Given Zodiac Ted's unpopularity, I think flipping 15 percent of GOP votes is more likely than boosting Dem turnout 20 percent. At the same time, though, if 2010's gap is the real one, not 2014's, O'Rourke just needs 210K more Doinks if he can steal 15 percent of Rethugs, or a little under 12 percent.

Update: I was asked on Twitter Monday night if I thought this could actually happen. My take on the numbers is that Beto is likely to fall short. I expect Cruz to win by somewhere between 5 and 10 percentage points. That would give Beto a moral victory of enough stature to perhaps put him into the Doinks' 2020 Prez discussion per Jonathan Tilove's thoughts and possible wet dreams. Since 1988 and Lloyd Bentsen being the last Dem elected to the Senate, the "flip" in Texas politics has been a hard one — no Senate race since then has been within 10 percentage points. By a fraction of a percentage point, Tricky Ricky Perry's four-way race for re-election as governor was within 10 percentage points and his 1998 lite guv race was far closer. And that's been it in Texas politics.

As of Sept. 28, Five Thirty Eight, with da mayor Nate Silver himself writing, had Beto within 5 percentage points. He said that non-polling info actually tilted Beto's way more than Ted's. I'm still not convinced it will be that close, let alone that Beto will win, but who knows?

And, getting his moment of limelight from the Snooze, there's the question about what Libertarian Neal Dikeman will do to this race. The Texas Libertarian Party is, from my low-level knowledge of the LP across the nation, moderately robust but not tremendously so. I don't expect Dikeman to get above 2.5 percent and even breaking 2.0 percent would be on the high side.

Translating my expected gap into odds? I give Beto a 10-20 percent shot. Again, if you're not familiar with Texas politics of the last ... geez, 25-plus years now, that is a "realistic" campaign within the current parameters.