U.S. Senator Ted Cruz won a third term in the 2024 general election in large part because he ran like he was losing as the least popular major Texas leader in the eyes of the electorate here for the past eight years or more.
You could make the case that every Texas Republican who emerged triumphant in races that appeared to be competitive owes a massive debt of gratitude to Donald Trump. Cruz could have lost to Democrat Colin Allred if anyone but Trump had been the GOP nominee for president this fall. Cruz has done his best to stay in Trump's good graces with groveling at an epic level after portraying him in vile terms in his own White House bid in 2016. But we'll never really know how much credit the president-elect deserves for the victory that Cruz secured at the polls this month when he defeated Allred by almost 9 percentage points in the second race on the Texas ticket.
Forget the fact that Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick beat a Democrat by 17 points in the general election here in 2024. Six Republicans won statewide races for the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals by an average margin of 17 points as well. Trump scored a 14-point victory in Texas where he only won by less than 6 points in a losing re-election race four years ago. But Cruz faced the toughest competition by far in statewide contests here this year in a fight with a Democrat who may have been the favorite if the two had been doing battle in a swing state.
Cruz clearly was better candidate this time around than he'd been in 2018 when a blue wave swept the Democrats to historic wins in legislative and congressional races here the last time he ran. Cruz is a co-most valuable player in the Capitol Inside Best of the Texas General Election for 2024 - an honor that he's sharing with State Rep. Eddie Morales Jr. of Eagle Pass.
Cruz and Morales both get the prize here for best incumbent campaign in the November 5 general election as well.
Cruz found a way to capitalize on growing paranoia among voters in the Lone Star State when he made transgender discrimination the number one issue in the closing weeks of the race. Cruz sought to convince parents that boys were on the verge of taking over girls sports even though this has never been a problem here or anywhere for that matter. Cruz sought to pin the blame for the fabricated phenomenon on the Democratic congressman who he was dueling even though Allred insisted that the incumbent was lying through his teeth about his record on the issue. The targeting of people because they're different and can't fight back helped Cruz mitigate the fact that Allred was the more macho candidate of the two by far as a former linebacker in the National Football League after a college career at Baylor University. Machismo is a really big deal in Trump's GOP - and Allred depicted the incumbent in a way that made him seem like a less manly flop at sports and politics alike.
Never mind that 99.99 percent of Texans or more do not wake up every day worrying to death about little girls riding the bench on teams with starters who are biological males. The issue worked like a charm for Cruz and Republicans who were running in districts where they had some chance of losing to Democrats this fall. Cruz desperately needed something to distract from Allred ads on how the senator had vowed to end the "scourge" of abortion - an issue that actually affects a huge share of the population in direct contrast to transgender fears. This was especially true in the midst of news reports about women dying or suffering severely as a direct result of the so-called Texas heartbeat law.
Cruz and the other Republicans on the ballot here were either astute or scared enough to bite tongues in unison on Melania Trump's unapologetic support for abortion rights and her husband's waffling on the issue. But Cruz also sought to distance himself from the Texas abortion ban - contending in a debate that GOP state lawmakers here were the parties that deserve the blame for that - not him.
Cruz beat Democrat Beto O'Rourke by 2.56 percentage points in 2018. O'Rourke was named here as the most valuable player that year despite the loss - however - when the Democrats picked up a dozen Texas House seats, two in the state Senate and two more in the U.S. House on the strength that he brought to the fight with Cruz. Democrats and most Republicans fully expected the Democrats to flip several Texas House seats again in 2024. But the GOP picked up two seats in the Legislature's lower chamber and one in the Senate when Cruz wasn't baggage for the down-ballot Republicans like he'd been six years ago.
The Democrats envisioned Cruz as a seawall against a potential Trump blowout at the top of the ticket. But they underestimated the senator's ability to learn from mistakes for the sake of running smarter, meaner and more creatively than he did the last time around.
Coming this week: Best challenger, Best open race and more ...
