Why Ted Cruz is bulletproof in 2024

In 2018, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the first Texas Republican since 1998, narrowly won a narrow statewide victory and narrowly won re-election to the Senate. But six years later, Mr. Cruz is well on his way to re-election. , there is little worry about another close game, let alone defeat.

That’s despite Democrats seeing Texas as their best hope for flipping Republican-held Senate seats in 2024.

In 2018, Democrat Beto O’Rourke came closer to winning a statewide election than any Democrat since 1998, but lost by a narrow margin to Cruz. 2.6 percentage points. O’Rourke’s success was the result of a perfect storm of troops that assembled in the Lone Star State that year.

First, the increasingly unpopular President Donald Trump was in the White House. This served as a drag on the Texas Republican Party’s overall campaign without compensating for the mobilization gains it would have had had he been on the ballot.

Second, O’Rourke was effective in being different things to many different people without coming across as hypocritical or suffering from self-contradictions. For the Democrats he mobilized to set policy; Modern mid-term voter turnout record, Mr. O’Rourke was a progressive with a strong desire to advance his own policy priorities and fight against the Trump administration. To independents and moderate Republicans, O’Rourke was a post-partisan pragmatist. took a road trip He and Republican Rep. Will Hurd represented a centrist alternative to the polarizing Cruz.

Third, O’Rourke can be everything to everyone in part because Cruz didn’t take his challenge seriously until the final months of the campaign. As a result, the Cruz campaign’s attack ads were too little, too late to change swing voters’ positive evaluations of Mr. O’Rourke. As a result, thousands of Republican and independent voters voted for Republican Governor Greg Abbott (Won by 13.3 points) remained loyal to Beto.

Fourth, many Texans believe that during his first term, Mr. Cruz was far more focused on national image and running for president in 2016 than on representing the state’s interests in the U.S. Senate. I felt that there was. This was in sharp contrast to her predecessor, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), whose focus was on Texas.

In 2018, some Trump supporters in Texas still remembered that Cruz did not endorse Trump in a speech. speech He spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, urging viewers to “vote their conscience” in November.

What a difference six years has made!

a University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll According to data released on February 1, Mr. Cruz has a nine-point lead in voting intent over presumptive Democratic candidate Rep. Colin Allred (49-40%). He enjoys a 10-point advantage over Texas Sen. Rolando Gutierrez, another leading Democratic candidate.

How can this be done? First, Democrats are letting President Biden drag on the entire Texas Democratic ticket. Three in five Texans have a negative opinion of Biden and his administration’s specific policy positions on culture war issues such as immigration and border security, oil and gas, DEI and transgender athletes. ing. I disagree with most Texans.. for example, 62 percent Thirty-three percent of likely voters support Mr. Abbott’s efforts to secure Texas’ border with Mexico, while 33% disapprove, an effort that has been harshly criticized by the Biden administration.

Second, both of the two leading Democratic Senate candidates (Mr. Allred and Mr. Gutierrez) hope to recreate the “Beto magic” of 2018 and become everything to everyone. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. In fact, even Mr. O’Rourke himself would not have been able to recreate that magic had he chosen to become this year’s Democratic nominee.

Third, the Cruz camp (and Texas Republicans more generally), once bitten and twice coy, learned from their 2018 near-death experience. As a result, Mr. Cruz will be monitoring support for himself and his Democratic rivals from now until November. As happened with Mr. O’Rourke in 2018, Democrats will react accordingly with fundraising and advertising, slowing the momentum before it solidifies.

Fourth, Mr. Cruz avoided a major problem. Over the past six years, he’s had several setbacks, most notably an ill-fated trip to Cancun in February 2021, when half the state was without power amid subzero temperatures. . But by and large, during his second term, he has been much more focused on his home state and less on his ambitions for higher office.

A few Texans still “remember Snowflake” (Cruz) poodleleft behind while the rest of the Cruz family decamped to the Mayan Riviera), Cruz’s favorability rating among likely voters in Texas is noticeably higher than that of Democrats. for example48 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Mr. Cruz, while only 41 percent have a favorable opinion of Mr. O’Rourke, and only 41 percent have a favorable opinion of Mr. Biden. 39 percent have a favorable opinion of Vice President Kamala Harris, and 37 percent have a favorable opinion of Vice President Kamala Harris.

There is always the possibility that national or local conditions may change between now and November, making the Texas Senate race more competitive. But now Mr. Cruz appears to be on track to be re-elected for a third term.

This reality only puts pressure on the national Democratic Party to successfully defend its country. vulnerable us senate There are also seats in Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (and to a lesser extent Michigan and Wisconsin). Flipping Texas is not realistic at this point.

Therefore, the only way Democrats can maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate is by holding the presidency in order to carry seats in these seven states and maintain the vice presidential tie-breaking vote.

This is not as bad as drawing a starting hand of 2-7 in Texas Hold’em, but it is far from the optimal position.

Mark P. Jones is the Joseph D. Jamel Professor of Latin American Studies at Rice University. He is a professor in the Department of Political Science, a political science fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Research, and faculty director of the Global Affairs Master’s Program.