Tuesday showed that the enduring deep-blue coalition of the future Democrats are always talking about still lies in the future.

The Democrats had a huge opportunity to unseat Ted Cruz last night. They blew it by thinking a gentry Hollywood-style liberal was the right candidate for Texas.

The not-overly-beloved Senator Cruz defeated Representative Beto O’Rourke by 2.6 percentage points in a race an incumbent Republican should have expected to win easily, on the same night Republican governor Greg Abbott won reelection by 13 points. Yet the Democratic reaction to O’Rourke’s loss is not, as far as I can tell, “Maybe we should have listened more closely to Texas” or even “I can’t believe we burned so much money on a longshot,” but “Losing narrowly is sort of a win.” As comedian-actor Ike Barinholtz put it on Twitter, “Ah sh*t Beto didn’t make it to the Senate. Oh well at least he’ll be president soon.” Only once has a sitting House member been elected president (James Garfield), but, hey, some Democrats point out, Abraham Lincoln was a congressman who lost a Senate race before being elected president. Yes, Democrats actually think comparing Beto to Lincoln is reasonable.