Texas Republicans face a real test this cycle, and Sen. Ted Cruz is done with the internal sniping.
On Tuesday’s The Ingraham Angle, Cruz made clear that the race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico is tight, consequential, and winnable—if the GOP stops the excuses and gets to work.
Host Laura Ingraham pressed Cruz on the grumbling she has heard from some in the party who wish a different nominee had emerged. Cruz did not soft-pedal the situation.
“Look, this race is a very real fight. It is serious. The polling that’s coming out all shows the race basically tied. It’s a one- or two-point race one way or the other. It’s a serious fight. And I believe we’re going to win. I think Ken Paxton is going to be the next senator from Texas. And the reason is, James Talarico’s substantive views, his record, are way, way crazy left. That’s not where the people of Texas are,” Cruz stated.
“But right now, the voters don’t know that. And I’ll give an example of something that broke this week, a video James Talarico did with left-wing activists from the Sierra Club, where he described, he talks about capitalism, white supremacy, and climate change. And he said all three are tools of oppression that need to be dismantled.”
“Now, if you’re a little Marxist activist, that is manna from heaven. But if you’re a Texan, you know what? Texans don’t want to dismantle capitalism. This guy is a woke DSA activist who wants to dismantle capitalism.”
Cruz kept hammering the point. Talarico’s own words reveal a worldview that has no place in the Lone Star State.
In the same Sierra Club instance, the Democrat predicted the end of the industry that powers Texas families and the national economy.
“And in those same remarks to the Sierra Club activists, he says oil and gas, the oil and gas industry is going to end,” Cruz said.
“It’s going the way of the cassette tape. Look, if you’re running in Berkeley, California, that’s probably a good platform. But thank God Texas is not Berkeley, California. We are actually America in the heartland. And when the voters hear this guy’s kooky views, he’s going to lose.”
“But we got a job to do between now and election day, which is to make sure they understand just how radical Talarico is.”
That is the core of the fight. Texas voters are practical, productive people who build things, extract energy, and reject the fantasy that prosperity itself is oppression.
Talarico’s rhetoric about dismantling capitalism and treating oil and gas like obsolete technology lands with a thud outside the activist bubble.
Cruz’s job, and the party’s job, is simply to make sure those words reach every household before November.
