Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz is running for re-election. On Wednesday his campaign launched a new coalition - Democrats for Cruz.
That's not something you hear every day. Cruz is one of the Democrats' favorite Republican whipping boys. He is demonized by Democrats, not praised, because of his unshakeable conservative principles. However, we are talking about Texas and many Texas Democrats are old-school. As one Democrat Cruz supporter says, Democrats are just "too damn liberal" these days. He's right.
Today's Democrat Party is not the party of days passed. It's alarming to observe but today's Democrat Party is more aligned with the likes of AOC and Rep. Rashida Tlaib than it is with more moderate voices. It is hard to believe that the party is more progressive now than during the Obama years, yet, here we are. Joe Biden is aggressively turning America into a weakened player on the world stage. The southern border is wide open. His economic policies have resulted in 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Voters have connected the dots. In Texas, that means there is a growing coalition of Democrats willing to come forward to announce their support for Senator Cruz.
Cruz wants to "keep Texas, Texas." Democrats have not won a statewide election in Texas since 1990. Republicans in Texas would like to keep it that way. Cruz doesn't enjoy the luxury of an easy re-election campaign. When he ran for re-election in 2018 against Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, he won by 2.6 points. That's too close for comfort.
To win elections, a Republican candidate has to widen his or her net and attract independents and some conservative-leaning Democrats. Conservative-leaning Democrats are rapidly becoming unicorns but they do exist in Texas.
So, here we are in 2024. Cruz easily won the Republican primary and will face Rep. Colin Allred who represents northern suburbs of Dallas. It's going to be another difficult race for Cruz. It's only logical that he reach out to Democrats.
The National Democratic Party has abandoned Texans. They’ve abandoned our brave men and women in law enforcement, they’ve abandoned South Texans as they deal with a historic border crisis, they’ve abandoned the oil and gas industry for a radical climate agenda, they’ve abandoned small businesses by crushing them with skyrocketing inflation, they’ve abandoned parents for a woke ideology.
Comprised of local sheriffs, former and current elected officials, small business owners, ranchers, students, oil and gas workers, parents, and more, Democrats for Cruz will continue to grow as Senator Cruz embarks on the campaign trail across the state.
Full disclosure: I am a Texas voter. I have supported Cruz since his first campaign as a Tea Party candidate in 2012. I blogged in support of his campaign and attended his events. I still support him.
The campaign is running a six-figure digital ad in key Texas counties.
That ad brings together a good mix of people. Older voters and younger voters, law enforcement, ranchers, teachers, small business owners, and ordinary Texans who are concerned about the disastrous result of Bidenomics.
A vote for Colin Allred is a vote for another progressive Democrat in the U.S. Senate. Chuck Schumer and his minions at the DNC have placed a target on Cruz's back. They want to take him out this time. It's a race to watch this election cycle.
The irony is not lost on me that Nikki Haley relied on support from Democrats, too, and she was dogged for it by some Republican voters. Is Ted Cruz a RINO, too? It goes to illustrate how silly the RINO label can be. RINO doesn't mean someone with whom you disagree in the Republican Party. In the real world, no politician can win an election with only the party's base. That is true for Republicans and Democrats. Coalitions are made. The tent has to expand, not contract.
There are not any new polls out yet on this race. In old polls, Cruz wins by a range of 14 points down to 2 points. We'll have to wait to see what kind of movement happens when new polls come out.
In the days before the Texas primary, the University of Texas at Tyler (UTT) released a poll that showed Cruz and Allred tied at 41% with voters who were asked which candidate they would support in November. 12% said they were unsure.
This will be a rough and tumble race. Allred has already released a video ad attacking Cruz as a pro-life Republican. He pledges to work to get Roe v Wade reinstated if he wins. Abortion is the top issue that Democrats are running on, just like in the elections since the Dobbs decision in the Supreme Court. Democrats have successfully rode that issue to victory in some states. Texas has a six-week ban on abortion. Will that be the main focus in Texas with independent voters and suburban women?
The Club for Growth is going to spend at least $10M in support of Cruz. It will tie Allred to Biden. Joe Biden is very unpopular in Texas. That kind of support needs to get out early in Texas, as the Club for Growth found out in 2018.
“Club for Growth Action has been strongly behind Sen. Ted Cruz since he was first elected, and we plan to spend 8 figures in his race against Biden’s MVP Rep. Colin Allred,” the group’s president, David McIntosh, said in a statement that nodded to Allred’s background as a former National Football League player.
In 2018, Cruz defeated Democrat Beto O’Rourke by less than three percentage points, a surprisingly tight margin that came after Cruz and his allies, some critics said, were slow to respond to O’Rourke’s emergence as a national Democratic darling. The Club for Growth did not start seriously spending in the race until late that summer.
Allred learned from the failed O'Rourke campaign. But, he points out it is a different time now and he is a different candidate. Democrats are making the race a top priority. They hope that energized Democrats against Trump at the top of the GOP ticket will lead to a better result for Allred.
“We’re going to build on the campaigns of the past,” Allred said in an interview Wednesday. But, he added, “I’m a different candidate, and it’s a different time, and we have different challenges.”
The political environment also differs from 2018. Democrats are hoping to benefit from the higher turnout in a presidential election year, and Texas is now one of their best pickup opportunities in the Senate as they mostly play defense in other battleground states.
Allred is ahead in fundraising. This will be a very expensive race. Look for Hollywood and other wealthy coastal elites to get involved in this race. They contributed millions to O'Rourke in 2018 - their financial contributions were greater than those of Texans. It's likely to happen again for Allred.
Cruz will have a Texas Democrat sheriff who is a part of the Democrats for Cruz coalition as a guest tonight for the State of the Union address. He is from the Rio Grande Valley. Illegal immigration and the border are his top issues.
I'll be keeping an eye on this race. Cruz will win. The question is by how much?
