Democrats' shocking victory in the Alabama Senate special election undoubtedly has raised their potential list of seats they might win. If they can win in the Deep South, they can win anywhere.
High on the list of reach targets is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is up for re-election in 2018. Hillary Clinton did quite well in Texas, only losing by 9 points (better than she did in Iowa) — as compared to nearly 28 points in Alabama. What's more, Democrats have a solid candidate in the form of Rep. Beto O'Rourke from El Paso.
Victory is a real possibility.
It is true, of course, that Cruz does not have any molestation scandals hanging over his head. But almost unbelievably, his approval rating is actually lower in Texas than Roy Moore's is in Alabama.
Figuring out just why this is necessarily involves a bit of guesswork, as there isn't a lot of polling on the question. But one factor is undoubtedly Cruz's performance at the Republican National Convention, where he pointedly refused to endorse then-candidate Donald Trump in a speech — and then later came around and supported him anyway. Thus did he alienate both the Republican rank-and-file, who love Trump, and the minority of anti-Trump conservatives.
Some of it's probably just Cruz himself, though. This might sound rather petty, but it's simply undeniable that Cruz is one of the most detestable people ever to hold national office in the United States — not in terms of actual bad actions, though God knows Cruz has his share of those, but in purely personal terms. He's a pathological showboater, who has repeatedly undermined the party to boost his own profile, like when he deliberately provoked a government shutdown over repealing ObamaCare in 2013 that the party leadership knew it could not win, then cynically whipped up the base against sellout RINOs in Washington when they lost. His personality is also just plain intolerable — he constantly exudes a smarmy, condescending, debate pedant miasma, like some fog machine programmed by a biochemist to produce maximum possible irritation.
People who have known Cruz for a long time testify he's always been like this. And just like at Princeton, he drives almost everyone up the wall, inspiring unreasoning hatred among his Republican colleagues in the Senate. Indeed, one important factor behind Trump's primary victory was the party elite's bald refusal to countenance the fact that Cruz was their only realistic non-Trump candidate.
http://theweek.com/articles/743119/d...after-ted-cruz
I hadn't realized Cruz was up for reelection next year. This should be interesting. Will he get his comeuppance for refusing to endorse President Trump until the eleventh hour? Should Texas Republicans support him or replace him with another Conservative candidate?
A part of me wants him to suffer a little, but not to the point of a Democrat winning in his place. Just want him to sweat a little.
What say ye?