At a Beto O’Rourke rally near Dallas shortly before the midterms, Sonia Qutob, 41, turned to her friend and asked what was clearly the most pressing question about the candidate.

“Do you think,” she said, “that he needs a second wife?”

O’Rourke seems to me plenty happy with the first. But a fangirl can dream. And I got the sense that many fangirls and no small number of fanboys did precisely that. At the rally immediately preceding the one where Qutob swooned, dozens of them mobbed O’Rourke and clamored for selfies. The passions that animated them were clearly more than political.

Before we leave the midterms too far behind and exhaust our fine-grained analysis of the electorate’s every cough and sputter, let’s take a moment to be shallow, which is to say honest. O’Rourke and Andrew Gillum soared to fame and impressive vote totals in, respectively, Texas and Florida because they were eloquent, energetic and empathetic counterpoints to their Republican rivals and to Donald Trump.

Also, they’re hunks.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York became the youngest woman ever elected to the House on the strength of her story, the purity of her vision and the smarts of her strategy.

But her celebrity isn’t hindered by her gorgeousness.

She has nearly 825,000 followers on Instagram — more, Politico recently noted, than Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan combined.

I asked O’Rourke how many of his supporters probably had a crush on him. Before he could answer, his spokesman, Chris Evans, chimed in: “They have a crush on Texas.” Give that young man a raise. And keep him close by for any future endeavors.

There’s obviously ample room in politics for people of all strata of comeliness, as any gallery of presidential portraits or group photo of members of Congress shows. Capricious and baffling as Americans can be, they do seem to prioritize other qualities above looks, and pulchritude is in the eye of the voter.

But many candidates’ personas are inseparable from their looks, whether those looks cast them as bookish, nurturing, approachable or, yes, hot. And in politics, as in much else, hot helps.

“From a very early age, we’re drawn to more attractive faces — even babies prefer that,” Deborah Rhode, a Stanford University law professor, told me. She’s the author of “The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law.” It explains that better-looking defendants fare better with juries.

But the advantages of attractiveness aren’t confined to any one situation or goal, she noted. They’re cumulative. “Teachers give less attention to less attractive children,” Rhode said. “Children ascribe intelligence to good-looking individuals and prefer them as friends.” So good-looking people wind up with more encouragement, broader social networks and more confidence, all of which beget success. “Attractiveness sets off a chain of consequences,” she added.

Rhode mentioned John F. Kennedy as a prime example from the past of a politician assisted by his appearance. She mentioned Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, as an example from the present. She might as easily have mentioned President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and the viral photos of him and Trudeau jogging together at a summit meeting in Ottawa two years ago.

O’Rourke, also a runner, would have fit in. “He’s athletic-looking,” said Nancy Etcoff, an evolutionary psychologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School and wrote a book titled “Survival of the Prettiest.” “He’s tall, and taller candidates almost always win.”

I spoke with Etcoff before Election Day, when O’Rourke of course lost his Senate race to the Republican incumbent, Ted Cruz. That defeat was mostly about Republicans’ dominance in Texas, which eclipsed O’Rourke’s advantages, including the physical ones.

“He’s a handsome guy,” Etcoff said. “He has a nice facial expression. Ted Cruz looks different from that.” Meaning? “I will not go further! I will not go further! This is The New York Times, after all.”

Etcoff’s research suggests that people read such positive characteristics as competence, trustworthiness and vigor into someone’s attractiveness, and she told me that this might have special political relevance in our present age of saturation imagery.

She said that there was almost certainly more forgiveness in the days of Abraham Lincoln, who, she noted, “considered himself homely.” According to one widely circulated but apocryphal story about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen Douglas accused him of being two-faced, and he responded, “If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?”

Etcoff asked: “Would he be elected now? I would hope the answer is yes. But it’s a real question.”

So is whether there’s such a thing as too attractive, at least for women. If you’re a dazzler, Rhode said, “You have more difficulty being taken seriously.” Ocasio-Cortez has already felt the sting of this.

When it comes to looks, as to so much else, women in politics are asked to thread a needle. They mustn’t ignore their appearance. But they also mustn’t flaunt it.

Just imagine the reaction if Kirsten Gillibrand or Kamala Harris, two Democratic senators eyeing 2020 presidential bids, let herself be photographed in poses analogous to the biceps-forward, brawny-beefcake shots that Martin O’Malley, a Democratic candidate in 2016, and Paul Ryan allowed.

Men get into trouble mainly if their physical vanity becomes much too obvious, as President Emmanuel Macron of France learned when he was mocked for spending $30,000 on makeup during his first three months in office and as John Edwards discovered in the aghast response to his $400 haircuts during his 2008 presidential campaign.

O’Rourke sidestepped that problem by leaning into the Texas heat and sweating copiously through his shirts, so much so that it yielded a subgenre of journalism about his perspiration. He was a proud human sponge. But here’s the thing: Can you get away with being that soggy if you aren’t that pretty?

Frank Bruni has been with The Times since 1995 and held a variety of jobs — including White House reporter, Rome bureau chief and chief restaurant critic — before becoming a columnist in 2011. He is the author of three best-selling books.  @FrankBruni • Facebook

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