The national party wasn’t expecting to have to defend a well-known senator in a conservative bastion.
With a string of polls showing GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s lead slipping, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick showed up in Washington on July 25 to deliver an urgent plea to White House officials: Send President Donald Trump.
Patrick, who chaired Trump’s 2016 campaign in the state, made the case that a Trump visit was needed to boost turnout for Cruz and the rest of the Texas Republican ticket. The lieutenant governor soon got his wish: Trump announced on Twitter late last month that he was planning a blowout October rally for Cruz, his former GOP rival.
The previously unreported meeting comes as senior Republicans grow increasingly concerned about the senator’s prospects in the reliably red state, with some expressing fear that an underperformance could threaten GOP candidates running further down the ballot. Cruz’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O’Rourke, has raised barrels of cash, closed the polling gap and emerged as a cause célèbre of liberals nationwide.
Trump’s rally is just the most public display of a Republican cavalry rushing to the senator’s aid. Cruz remains a favorite to win another term, and some senior GOP figures insist the concern is overblown. Yet the party — which has had a fraught relationship with the anti-establishment Texas senator over the years — is suddenly leaving little to chance. Behind the scenes, the White House, party leaders and a collection of conservative outside groups have begun plotting out a full-fledged effort to bolster Cruz.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who’s planning an October fundraiser for Cruz at Washington’s Capital Grille restaurant, said he had a simple directive to GOP givers.
“We’re not bluffing, this is real, and it is a serious threat,” Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said in an interview. “If Ted does his job and we do ours, I think we’ll be fine. But if we have donors sitting on the sidelines thinking that, ‘Well, this isn’t all that serious,’ or ‘I don’t need to be concerned,’ then that’s a problem.”
The push reflects a broader anxiety within the party about the electoral environment this fall. It also has practical implications for the GOP: The resources devoted to Cruz include money that could otherwise be used to oust vulnerable incumbent Democrats in red states like North Dakota, Indiana and Missouri.
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- Discussion
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Inside the GOP’s rescue mission for Ted Cruz https://t.co/25puogs2Ld
— POLITICO (@politico) September 9, 2018
Cruz jumped on the Trump bandwagon. He knows what is going on and remains silent about it. I could care less if he wins or loses in TX.
Well, the party as a whole lost me when Trump was elected and Ted Cruz decided to humble himself before the king. Even after Trump won, I had some hope that he might prove me wrong. Well, he didn’t. And that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
We have been lied to by the Republican Party since at least 2010 when it took over the House. First it was, “give us the House and we will frustrate Obama’s agenda and really do good things.” Well, the voters did, but they didn’t. Then it was “give us the senate and we will really frustrate Obama’s agenda and do good things.” Well, the voters did, but once again, the Republicans didn’t. Finally, Trump came along and the voters were promised that with Republican domination in both houses of congress and a Republican president, all those promises would be fulfilled. Once again, voters were lied to.
The Republicans have had plenty of chances, but they blew it. Their efforts now to hold onto their majorities in both houses of congress are too little, too late. I refuse to be bamboozled again and I am not alone. The party is poised to lose big time in November. If it does, it will be its own fault. I refuse to take the blame just because I won’t vote for candidates because they have an “R” next to their names. So we will suffer again under Democrat rule. Right about now, I don’t really see a difference no matter who is in charge. And I don’t care.
I don’t know what I’m going to end up doing come Nov. I read an interesting article about voting Dem for house seats and GOP for Senate hoping that a Dem house will put the reins on Trump yet keep the Senate to maintain some Conservative gains. I don’t know if I can bring myself to vote for a Dem. That being said I don’t know of any GOP I can bring myself to vote for either. I used to think the Dem party was the more corrupt of the two and the past couple of years has led me to believe that the GOP are making the Dems look like patriots.
I found myself actually agreeing with some of Obama’s speech the other day. I never would listen to him speak. I couldn’t stand it so I’d read the transcripts. He actually sounded presidential! It’s like we’ve forgotten what it is like to have at least some dignity in the office. When I start thinking that Obama sounds good things have gotten really bad.
I was thinking of voting Dem too — I agree; there is no difference. In my neck of the woods, we only have one national race — for one of the two senate seats, and that seat will most likely be won by the Dem incumbent, with or without muy vote. His Republican challenger hasn’t even campaigned on this side of the state and only began running tv ads about a week ago. He will probably get votes from the area around where he lives, but that’s it. Basically, he looks like just token opposition.
Then I thought I would just skip the November elections altogether, but I won’t for two reasons: One is that I promised my Dad that I would always vote. Years ago, I was thinking about skipping a really dull off-year election and said so to my Dad. Well, he read me the riot act. He reminded me of all the people who fought and died so I could have the privilege (not the right) to vote and that that privilege could be lost at any time if I didn’t vote. So I made Dad a promise that I would always vote and except for a period when I was laid up and couldn’t get out, I have always voted.
The second reason is that there is a statewide referendum on the ballot that I intend to vote against — another big government, feed-the-poor initiative that will result in my local property taxes being raised. Um…no.
So my plan now is to vote, but only against the referendum. I intend to skip over the senate race and a few local races. Or maybe I’ll write in a name or vote for the libertarian, if there is one. As I said, I really don’t care.
And about sounding presidential: Trump can sound presidential too, but only if he is delivering a speech prepared by his staff. Left to his own devices — off the cuff, his tweets from his personal Twitter account, or during his never-ending campaign/rock star tour — Trump sounds like the mental midget he is.
Yes, it’s easy to tell which of his speeches are written for him.
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