Beto O'Rourke's attempt at mocking Ted Cruz on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' backfires

Beto O'Rourke tried to make a joke at Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) expense during an appearance on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," but the lighthearted jab backfired when Cruz responded on Twitter.

Meyers was talking to O'Rourke about how difficult it is to stand out in a presidential primary of more than 20 candidates, and took a little shot at Cruz to make his point.

"You ran against Ted Cruz in a Senate campaign. Do you ever miss how easy it was to be different from Ted Cruz?" Meyer asked.

"Where is Ted Cruz when you need him?" O'Rourke joked in reply.

"Very rarely uttered, and yet here we are," Meyers said as they both laughed over applause from the audience.

This, of course, was an easy set up for Cruz, who is sharp on Twitter, to get the best of O'Rourke. Where is Ted Cruz, you ask?

"...in the Senate," Cruz replied on Twitter.

Beto O'Rourke on His Punk-Rock Past, Ted Cruz and His Plan for 2020youtu.be

This all highlights the fact that despite all the hype, O'Rourke's biggest political accomplishment is losing to Cruz in the 2018 Texas Senate race, and his promotion from relatively unknown El Paso congressman to supposed presidential candidate contender is mostly based on the fact that he didn't lose by as much as most people expected him to.

O'Rourke and his supporters are now finding out that this is not quite enough to compete with former vice presidents, veteran senators, and apparently even former HUD secretaries who are now passing him up so far in the primary.

O'Rourke's campaign is going so poorly right now that Cruz could enter the Democratic field right now and be polling about the same as O'Rourke, since he is now sitting at a "less-than-ideal zero percent."

At least he's having fun though, right?