Beto O’Rourke sees stock fall

“I’m hoping he regains his momentum but he really has in many ways lost his message with the reality TV of teeth cleaning and his undefined road trips,” Robert Zimmerman, a major Democratic donor, said. “Maybe there’s a strategy behind it but it started becoming trivial.”

“It was a bridge too far,” another major Democratic bundler agreed of the teeth cleaning and O’Rourke’s tendency to overshare on social media…

Multiple Democratic operatives and strategists cautioned that time is of the essence for O’Rourke, and that delaying a decision on a presidential bid could cost him valuable staff hires and commitments from donors.

“You only catch lightning in a bottle once,” said Adam Parkhomenko, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “He was rolling so quick on that [Senate] campaign, that if he had kept that going, he probably would have kept a handful of people from ever entering the race.”