Ted Cruz Warns Democrats ‘Coming After Me’ as Polls Show Texas Race Tighten

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has claimed Democrats “are coming after me with everything they have” after a number of polls showed him in a tight race against challenger Colin Allred, who currently sits in the House of Representatives.
Republican Cruz made the remark during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.
He later shared a 35-second clip of his appearance on X, formerly Twitter, adding: “Bernie Sanders and AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] were campaigning against me in Texas this week. They were exactly right: if they take Texas, they can take over the country completely.”
The Democrats currently have a wafer-thin Senate majority, with 51 Senators either caucusing with or aligned to the party, against 49 for the GOP.
Republicans are hoping to seize the upper chamber in November and are widely expected to take the West Virginia seat currently occupied by Joe Manchin, an independent caucusing with the Democrats who isn’t standing for reelection.
In a bid to redress the balance, Democrats are targeting the seats of Cruz and Sen. Rick Scott in Florida, and recently announced a “multimillion-dollar investment” in TV advertising for both states.
Several recent polls put just a one percentage point difference Cruz and Allred.
Newsweek contacted the Ted Cruz and Colin Allred Senate campaigns for comment on Tuesday by email outside of regular office hours.
Sanders completed a three-day campaign tour of Texas at the beginning of this month, during which he was joined by New York Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for a rally at Texas State University on October 1.
Speaking during his trip Sanders said “it will make all the difference in the world if Colin is elected to the Senate,” adding: “He’ll give us a chance to control the Senate and begin to pass legislation that benefits working people.”
On October 1 the Cook Political Report, a group which provides nonpartisan election analysis, downgraded Cruz’s seat from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican” for November in a blow to the incumbent senator.
A Public Policy Polling/Clean and Prosperous America survey of 759 registered Texan voters conducted over September 25-26 gave Cruz a lead of just one point, with the Republican on 47 percent against 46 percent for Allred. The results had a 3.5 point margin of error.
Morning Consult polled 2,716 likely Texan voters between September 9 and 18, finding Allred ahead by one point with 45 percent of the vote versus 44 percent for the Republican.
In November 2018 Cruz narrowly beat Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke with 50.9 percent of the vote against 48.3 percent.
Speaking to Newsweek Dr. Mark Shanahan, who teaches American politics at the U.K.’s University of Surrey, said the Democrats were targeting Cruz in the expectation they would lose Senate seats elsewhere.
He said: “The Democrats are bullish that they can hold on to the White House and flip the House of Representatives, but the Achilles’ heel in their plan for government is that they’re currently on track to lose the Senate. They’ll lose Manchin’s seat in West Virginia, Jon Tester holding on in Montana looks to be a forlorn hope, and Sherrod Brown remains locked in a too-tight race in Ohio. So the party is looking for flippable Senate seats and has landed on Rick Scott in Florida and Ted Cruz in Texas.
“Cruz is seen by many as yesterday’s man. He’s polling well below Trump across the state and his opponent, former NFL football star turned civil rights lawyer Colin Allred, is the kind of young, telegenic politician likely to appeal to independents and the paler red among Republicans.”