But, by the time O’Rourke ascended the ersatz stage that had been constructed for his return to Austin for the first time as a candidate for president at just after 10:30 p.m., thousands of people had filled the streets in every direction, and the former congressman from El Paso, removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, seemed buoyed higher than ever.

“Austin, how you doin’?” O’Rourke asked. “We love you Austin. It is so good to be back here in Austin, the source of what is good for Texas and for the United States of America.”

The three rallies Saturday were in the campaign’s description, kick off rallies, the official launch of his presidential campaign. But that came with a tweeted video way back on March 14, a seeming eon of political time ago, and these three rallies in the friendly terrain of his hometown of El Paso, in Houston, and in the shadow of the Capitol were homecomings for a favorite son who, after enduring a loss, had contemplated what that meant and what to do next and decided to reach higher.

Here was O’Rourke, saying that he wanted to serve them now as “the next president of the United States,” and, in the line that drew the most thunderous applause of the night, saying he wanted to defeat Donald Trump, that that was now to be his job.

Jenyfer Gonzalez, 20, a community college nursing student from Liberty Hill north of Austin, pushed her sister, her boyfriend and his sister to arrive near the Capitol in Austin two hours early.

What motivates her to want to see O'Rourke in the flesh for the first time, she was asked.

"He's attractive," Gonzalez shot back with a laugh. "I agree with a lot of his policies like immigration. He thinks we should do away with the Electoral College because there's no point to it. He thinks everybody should get health care."

Retirees Raymond and Cathy Johnson, despite infirmities that have disability placards hanging from their portable camping chairs, drove from their home in Roanoke in northeast Tarrant County to O'Rourke's Austin event.

"Things are so out of shape right now," explained Raymond Johnson, a retired Los Angeles sheriff's patrol officer and lifelong Democrat.