Texas is widely seen as a GOP stronghold, so you might be excused if you forgot that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is up for reelection this year. Cruz surely had no reason to expect his party to spend money defending his turf, especially given the wealth of endangered Senate Democrats this cycle.
Yet here we are, roughly three weeks before the election, and Cruz is fighting to maintain a slim lead in his race while crying about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to bail him out.
It’s delicious.
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“We are in the middle of a full-on battle,” Cruz recently complained during an appearance on conservative Mark Levin’s radio show. “[Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer has been explicit—I'm his No. 1 target in the country. And they are spending between $100 and $150 million trying to beat me. ... For three months, as you just mentioned, they've been running attack ads nonstop. I just got up on TV three weeks ago. Now it's not that I didn't want to be on TV three months ago—we didn't have the money ... [A]nd poll after poll shows this as a 1-point race or a 2-point race or a 3-point race."
During a separate appearance on Levin’s show, Cruz pointedly blamed McConnell for his predicament.
"In 2018, I was facing at the time what was the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history. I was being outspent 3 to 1. … And unfortunately, Mitch McConnell spent zero dollars to defend Texas. He spent $300 million elsewhere but not a penny in Texas. This time that PAC has $400 million. They have spent zero [on my race]."
One might dismiss this as one of those “the sky is falling!” fundraising ploys, except that McConnell’s own outfit, the Senate Leadership Fund, has just sounded the alarm about this race.
“Beginning in early August, Colin Allred has been heavily outspending Ted Cruz on TV, closing up the multicandidate ballot to a single point,” a memo warned. “GOP outside groups (including a dedicated Cruz super PAC) joined the fray in late September and narrowed Allred’s spending advantage.”
The memo has Cruz beating Democratic Rep. Colin Allred by a sliver, 48-47, with Donald Trump carrying the state 50-45. Public polling also shows a competitive race. This is a legit Democratic pickup opportunity.
It is rich for Cruz to cry about McConnell not having his back. Not only has Cruz served in the Senate for over 10 years, giving him more than enough time and name recognition to raise the kind of money he needs to defend his home turf, but he has a long history of caucus-annoying publicity stunts designed to pull in money from the rabid conservative faithful—oftentimes at McConnell’s expense.
And he’s been successful at it! This cycle, he raised nearly $60 million by the end of June, the last publicly available reporting period. That’s significantly more than the roughly $38 million Allred raised in this incredibly expensive state. (The Q3 report should come out soon.)
Yet Cruz, with his universal name recognition in supposedly conservative Texas, during a presidential election year, is struggling against a Democrat with very little name ID who has raised 36% less money?
Cruz’s predicament is even more satisfying because he has been buttressed by a flood of outside money, with conservative groups pumping $27 million into the race through June 30, compared to just $800,000 from Allred’s allies (that has since changed). That conservative money has clearly had very little impact on Allred’s chances. Perhaps that’s why McConnell doesn’t feel particularly motivated to throw more money at that race. He certainly doesn’t like Cruz—and for good reason. Just this past February, Cruz was demanding McConnell step down as leader.
“The junior senator from Texas declared it’s time for McConnell to go at a Tuesday news conference with six of his conservative Senate colleagues,” the Texas Tribune reported at the time, as conservative anger and infighting about the bipartisan border bill boiled over.
“I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans,” Cruz said. In response, McConnell said, “I think we can all agree that Sen. Cruz is not a fan.” So yes, McConnell is holding a grudge.
That Senate Leadership Fund’s memo suggests the super PAC may finally engage in Texas during these final weeks. Meanwhile Florida Sen. Rick Scott, yet another McConnell nemesis, is also being completely ignored despite signs that race is also competitive.
But the memo is careful not to make any promises, instead noting that “GOP outside groups” have engaged (studiously omitting the super PAC itself), and concludes, “We are carefully monitoring additional media placements and will have fresh polling numbers here next week.”
Cruz doesn’t need yet another poll to remind him that he’s in real danger of losing. In fact, the Senate Leadership Fund memo’s treatment of the race suggests that the most they’ll do is send up a bat signal so that other GOP donors will enter the fray.
Republican infighting sure is fun!
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