By Emma Weidmann | Editor-in-Chief and Joe Pratt | Executive Producer
Sen. Ted Cruz smells danger.
When his Keep Texas Texas reelection tour stopped in Waco at a packed Milo Friday afternoon, the Republican senator warned of it on different fronts — on the border, in the economy and in November’s election.
There’s no state more vital to winning in November than Texas, according to Chris DeCluitt, chairman of the McLennan County Republican Party.
“I’m fired up and I’m seeing red,” DeCluitt said to open the campaign stop. “Our responsibility is to make sure that we deliver McLennan County, this district and this state for Ted Cruz and for Donald J. Trump. It’s our responsibility for everybody to recommit to get this election done because as goes Texas, as goes the United States.”
Go it might. Recent polling from the Texas Tribune shows Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris within a stone’s throw of Donald Trump in Texas, and Cruz’s lead against Democratic opponent, Baylor graduate Colin Allred, is shrinking fast.
Those stats seem to have lit a fire under the senator’s campaign. Cruz said there’s “a real battle for Texas,” and attacked his opponent’s “extremely liberal” record.
“That’s a fight for the direction Texas goes,” Cruz said. “I’m confident we’re going to win in November, because Texas is a state that believes in common sense. Elections are about a candidate’s record and a candidate’s vision, and my record is very, very different from Congressman Allred’s.”
Allred’s record is certainly in high contrast with Cruz’s. Allred tends to vote for environmental resolutions in the House of Representatives and against condemning the Biden-Harris administration on the border — a job that Cruz compared to letting Jeffrey Dahmer run a deli.
His speech was full of high-stakes scenarios and grave tales from Capitol Hill. In one particularly bleak story, Cruz recounted questioning Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on the border. According to Cruz, the secretary was unable to explain the meaning behind a photo of multi-colored wristbands he showed during an oversight meeting.
“Just about every illegal alien that comes into this country is wearing one of those colored wristbands,” Cruz said. “The colors correspond to how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels. When you stand on the banks of the Rio Grande River, as I have many times, you will see hundreds or even thousands of those wristbands laying in the grass. Nobody crosses into this country for free.”
For an audience in Waco, the U.S.-Mexico border may feel distant compared to those closer to the problem geographically. However, Cruz made it a problem for all Texans, and for those in “every city in America,” where he said Biden and Harris fly illegal immigrants.
“And you may think Waco is not a border town,” Cruz said. “You’d be wrong.”
The incident with Mayorkas is the stuff of Republican legend and cements Cruz as a champion of the modern conservative cause. Texas state Sen. Brian Birdwell introduced the headliner to the stage with a glowing review.
“The other thing about Ted Cruz is, besides being such a great gentleman, whenever somebody from this administration appears before one of his committees, have you noticed that he can chew him up and spit him out?” Birdwell asked to whooping cheers.
The idea of Texas becoming a swing state is usually nothing more than a pipe dream. But to Cruz, the threat of “left-wing Democrats that want to turn Texas blue” is very real.
“But I’ll tell you precisely because things are going so well, the left has a bullseye on the state of Texas,” Cruz said. “Chuck Schumer has been explicit that I am his No. 1 target… Democrats Chuck Schumer and George Soros are going to spend over $100 million trying to beat me.”
To those on the other side of the aisle, voter turnout, not necessarily funding, is the avenue to the hypothetical blue Texas. Elgin, Okla. senior Bee Matthey, president of College Democrats at Baylor, works at the McLennan County Democratic Party and said there are many people — even of the older generations — who are eager to put up lawn signs and organize voter efforts.
“I think we have a lot more Democratic representation than we realize as Texas, and I think it really shows in times like these,” Matthey said. “I think there’s just not an epidemic, but a trend of not voting when you know you think it’s going to be okay. [In 2016] we all said, ‘surely we won’t vote Trump in’… If people are out there actually representing their beliefs, we have a better shot at being a swing state.”
As chatter of a Democratic win in Texas alarms many Republicans, Cruz sees his home state as a sort of bastion of the red vote, and he also bears the “Come and Take it” approach to his campaign battles.
“If you’re a really partisan, left-wing Democrat, after Donald Trump, there is nobody in the country you want to beat more than me,” Cruz said. “Last night at the [Democratic National Convention], you saw those delegates all chanting ‘beat Ted Cruz.’ But you know what? They’re not going to.”
