Ted Cruz Hits the Panic Button

He complains about being outspent and Dems cheating.

Ted Cruz continues to follow the Trump playbook of fear mongering, demonizing migrants, racist dog whistles, and lies this morning as his re-election battle against popular Democratic congressman Colin Allred heads into the home stretch. 

Cruz won his first election in 2012 by a whopping 17 points. Since then, his toxic and abrasive personality, grandstanding and grifting, has only seen his popularity in the state decline. He won by only 2 points over Beto O'Rourke in 2018, and now poll after poll continues to show Allred within 1-2 points of Cruz. 

Cruz clearly sounded panicked this morning on Newsmax, where he dedicated his entire five minute segment to repeatedly begging the audience to send him money. Normally, networks bring on candidates to talk about the news of the day and don't allow them to use their platforms as free fundraising vehicles, but this is Newsmax and Ted Cruz so shamelessness is the brand:

"He's been on TV for 3 months straight with relentless attack ads. I just went on TV a couple of weeks ago. I want to encourage your viewers this morning - I need your help. Contribute, because we are getting swamped ... they have put a bullseye on the state of Texas. They know if they flip Texas, if they take me out, they take the entire country - they keep the Senate Democrat. So, I need your help."

Cruz also mentioned George Soros and Chuck Schumer three separate times, claiming that he is their "number one target" and "flooding cash into the state of Texas," spending $100 million against him while he has just started airing his first TV ads. Here is a montage of Cruz mentioning Soros over and over again:

Cruz then said that another reason why he is worried about this race is because of "Californians coming into our state in massive numbers" who are mostly registered Democrats, and a claim that the Democratic Party is planning to have migrants who aren't US citizens vote illegally in his election, despite the fact that Texas has some of the toughest criminal penalties and enforcement on illegal voting in the country.

Democrats often get their hopes up in races like this in red states like South Carolina, Kentucky, Florida, Ohio, and Texas when they have strong candidates against hated and unpopular Republican incumbents, only to come up short after spending large amounts of money. But Ted is right that the demographics of Texas is changing and continue to trend Democrat, unlike Florida that has gone the other way in recent years.

Could Allred actually beat Cruz? The polls suggest it is certainly possible. With the way Ted has sounded lately, he sure thinks so.