Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Thursday on his podcast, The Verdict, that he is “deeply, deeply worried” about Tuesday’s election. He said, “What we’re seeing across the country is massive Democrat turnout. Democrats are showing up. They’re energized. They hate, hate, hate Donald Trump.”
Cruz added: “If the election were over today, if just the early votes cast so far were counted, Republicans would lose massively. It would not be close. We would lose both the House and the Senate. It would be a bloodbath.”
On the Senate race in Texas, Cruz said: “By the way, Texas is excruciatingly close. Understand, we could lose Texas,” he said. “We could lose every single statewide race in Texas.”
He acknowledged that some conservatives distrust the polls. The polls “do skew left,” he said, but “these data are not fake.” Then came his plea: “The Democrats are massively out-turning out the Republicans. We gotta fix that.”
[NOTE: In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leads Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in recent Senate race polling. Gov. Greg Abbott is in a tighter-than-expected race with Democrat Gina Hinojosa, whom Talarico on Saturday called “our next governor.”]
The Republican National Committee’s chairman, Joe Gruters, was more upbeat. He told NewsNation’s Blake Burman on Friday that Republicans will win Senate races in Alaska, Texas and three other battlegrounds. Gruters said, “We put up candidates that can win and common-sense mainstream candidates, and I think that will make the difference.” He admitted: “So yes, maybe the generic ballot, we’re not doing so hot.”
Gruters’s pitch to Republican donors was darker. He told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo that if Democrats win Congress, “They’re gonna have investigations, they’re gonna obstruct, they’re gonna impeach – it’s gonna be total chaos.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) responded to Cruz’s comments and said that he’s “very confident that House Democrats are on the verge of taking back control” because voters are “fed up with MAGA extremism.”
Jeffries also amplified President Trump’s weekend schedule which included rallies in Iowa and Kansas. “Republicans in Kansas and Iowa are scrambling to keep Donald Trump as far away from their states as possible. But he insists on skunking up the place,” Jeffries wrote. “This guy is toxic in farm country and throughout America. VOTE.”