Despite millions of dollars and best-laid plans, Texas once again eluded Democrats as Senator Ted Cruz pulled off a photo finish to win a third term.
The controversial Republican appeared to have underperformed Donald Trump, who handily won the Lone Star State. In the final weeks of the campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris had held a rally in Houston with Beyoncé and Democratic challenger Colin Allred in hopes of boosting the Senate hopeful – but to no avail.
But Cruz, a former presidential candidate who first won his term in 2012, hung on largely by focusing on Trump and Republicans’ signature issue: migrants crossing illegally at the US-Mexico border. Cruz repeatedly lambasted Allred, a three-term Texas congressman and former football player, for being weak on immigration.
Conservative groups also attacked Allred for the same subject they have used in other races: transgender women playing in girls’ sports. Allred found himself on the defense in response to these ads.
This allowed Cruz to hang on despite consistent attacks for his strident right-wing record on everything from trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results to his hardline opposition to abortion.
Cruz’s consistent antagonizing of Republican leadership meant that he largely did not receive help from Washington. Nevertheless, his support from grassroots conservatives allowed him to squeak by.
Cruz’s victory will certainly demoralize Democrats, who long believed that they had a shot at winning a race in Texas. Democrats have not won a Senate race in Texas in decades, but they had hoped that Republicans’ move toward the hard right on everything from immigration to abortion to education, as well as an influx of new residents from blue states, would lead to them finally having a shot in the land that produced such Democratic luminaries as Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and Lloyd Bentsen.
Nevertheless, Cruz’s political near-death experience, combined with Harris apparently having cut into Trump’s margins in Texas, is certain to cause concern for Republicans, who have held every statewide office in Texas since 1998.
