Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), “a Democrat and ex-punk rocker who pulled a stunning upset to win his House seat six years ago, plans to declare his candidacy on Friday for the Senate seat held by Ted Cruz,” the Houston Chronicle reports.
Cruz’s Popularity Plummets In Texas
A new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll finds Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) with a dismal 38% to 39% approval rating.
Among independents, Cruz holds a 20% to 53% approval rating.
Cruz Predicts Another Supreme Court Vacancy
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) made a pretty odd prediction that there would be a Supreme Court vacancy shortly after Neil Gorsuch’s likely confirmation to the existing one, the Washington Post reports.
Said Cruz: “I think we’ll have another Supreme Court vacancy this summer. If that happens, as much as the left is crazy now, Democrats will go full Armageddon.”
Ted Cruz’s Political Operation Seeks a Purpose
Politico: “The ripples are visible across the Republican Party, but nowhere has the shock of Trump’s conquest been felt more acutely than inside the Texas senator’s sprawling electoral enterprise. Having spent the past two years constructing the most sophisticated operation in politics—an outfit that raised more cash than any Republican primary candidate in history—Cruz now has little choice but to garage it. There is no space inside Trump’s GOP for a rival political apparatus of that scale, nor is there money to sustain it.”
“The 125 square-foot office Cruz’s team rented last summer at 300 New Jersey Ave., against a breathtaking backdrop of the Capitol, will soon be vacant. The group will be repurposed to assist Cruz with some issue advocacy, but no longer is it a presidential campaign-in-waiting.”
How Trump and Cruz Made Peace
Politico: “Ted Cruz met with Donald Trump exactly one week after Election Day. As it turned out, Cruz’s tete-a-tete with the president-elect he had spurned from the stage of the Republican National Convention just months before wasn’t the most consequential meeting he would have that day. After his talk with Trump, the Texas senator and his chief of staff, David Polyansky, then sat down with his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, who sounded him out about his interest in filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the late Antonin Scalia. Cruz – widely considered one of the best Supreme Court litigators of his generation – swatted down the idea, according to four people to whom he has relayed the conversation.”
“Handing Cruz a lifetime appointment to the high court would have been a political masterstroke. It would have simultaneously eliminated Trump’s chief adversary within the Republican Party and elated conservatives. That may not happen, but the conversations Cruz had that day with Trump and several of his aides touched off a congenial and cooperative relationship between the onetime rivals. Though Cruz may have been one of Trump’s most vocal critics during the campaign, as Inauguration Day nears, he has become perhaps the president-elect’s most important – and most unexpected – ally in the Senate.”
Cruz May Get An Independent Challenger
Matthew Dowd, a former George W. Bush strategist, is mulling an independent challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the Texas Tribune reports.
Said Dowd: “I am giving it some thought. I haven’t made a decision. I don’t know what I will do. But I am giving it some thought, and I appreciate the interest of folks.”
“The political strategist’s career tells the story of the past three decades of Texas politics. Dowd started in Democratic politics, including as a staffer to the late U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and the late Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock. But Dowd eventually gravitated to then-Gov. Bush in the late 1990s, working on both of his presidential campaigns and for the Republican National Committee. In 2007, Dowd publicly criticized Bush over the Iraq war.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“If we’re given the White House and both houses of Congress and we don’t deliver, I think there will be pitchforks and torches in the streets. And I think quite rightly. I think people are so fed up with Washington. This election was a mandate with change, and the most catastrophic thing Republicans could do is go back to business as usual.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), quoted by the Daily Beast.
The Revenge of ‘Flyover Country’
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) offered his assessment of Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat, calling it the “revenge of flyover country,” CNN reports.
Cruz said the election “was an incredible vindication for the American people across this country, and especially those that you know in rural America, in what elites on both coasts consider to be flyover country.”
He added: “I think the Clinton campaign found themselves utterly flabbergasted. They had not even contemplated the possibility that they might not prevail. And that, I think, is the direct result of not listening to and not hearing the American people.”
Cruz Telling Friends He’d Like to Be Attorney General
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has told confidants he’s interested in serving as attorney general in the Trump administration, The Hill reports.
“Cruz may not be the frontrunner for the job, which is a target for others in Trump’s orbit — including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), an early supporter of the businessman. Cruz, in contrast, memorably fought with Trump while finishing second in the GOP primary.”
Cruz Being Considered for Attorney General
President-elect Donald Trump is considering nominating Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to serve as U.S. attorney general, Bloomberg reports.
“Cruz was at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday. When approached by reporters on his way out, Cruz said the election was a mandate for change but didn’t say he was under consideration for a job.”
Graham Suggests Cruz for the Supreme Court
Sen. Lindsey Graham told WYFF that President-elect Donald Trump should nominate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to the Supreme Court.
Said Graham: “I’m here to tell my Democratic colleagues that I voted for Obama’s nominees. I expect them to give Trump’s nominees a fair shake. He won this election. He will pick a conservative. I would put Ted Cruz on that list… There are some really strong people in there. And there is no stronger constitutional conservative than Ted Cruz.”
Cruz Stumps for Trump But Won’t Say His Name
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) campaigned for Donald Trump for the first time on Thursday, joining Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on the trail in Iowa, but could not bring himself to so much as say Trump’s name, Politico reports.
“Instead, he dedicated his speech to slamming the Affordable Care Act and warning of what Hillary Clinton’s appointments to the Supreme Court would mean for Americans.”
Cruz Says GOP May Block Nominees Indefinitely
“In a vintage return to his confrontational style, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) indicated that Republicans could seek to block a Democratic president from filling the vacant Supreme Court seat indefinitely,” Politico reports.
Said Cruz: “There will be plenty of time for debate on that issue… There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices.”
Cruz Sticks with Trump
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says he will not pull back his late endorsement of Donald Trump, despite the release of a video showing the GOP nominee braggin about sexual assault, Politico reports.
Said Cruz: “I am supporting the Republican nominee because I think Hillary Clinton is an absolute disaster. Now my differences with Donald, I have articulated at great length during the campaign. And I tried all my might.”
How Cruz Came to Endorse Trump
Politico: “At the time of his convention speech, there was compelling political logic for the ambitious firebrand to steer clear of Trump. Cruz appears likely to run for president again, and Trump, at the time, looked like was headed toward a blowout loss. Not to mention, Trump had essentially called Cruz’s wife unattractive and erroneously linked his father to JFK’s assassination.”
“Cruz’s allies believed if he played it right, he could emerge from the election as one of the last principled conservatives — the final bulwark against a candidate who violated many of the values conservatives hold dear.”
“But with Trump approaching Hillary Clinton in the polls, Cruz’s diss had become more of a liability: A narrow Trump loss might have been pinned on Cruz for keeping conservatives home on Election Day because they were following his lead.”
Cruz’s Next Campaign Off to a Rocky Start
National Review: “Cruz’s remarks provoked backlash not only from delegates in Cleveland but also from allies in the conservative movement and top-dollar donors to his campaign. In the week and a half since his speech, some of Cruz’s longtime supporters have excoriated him both in private and in public, blowback that has far exceeded what Cruz and his team anticipated.”
“Unnerved by the scope of the fallout, Cruz is attempting to defuse tensions behind the scenes. He and his lieutenants are confident that the controversy will die down and believe that Trump’s every misstep between now and November will validate Cruz’s decision to withhold his support. They also realize, though, that his run in 2020 — not to mention his Senate reelection in 2018 — will be immeasurably more difficult without the support of the financial and grassroots networks he cultivated in 2016, significant portions of which he has angered with his recent actions.”
Cruz’s Convention Stunt Backfires
A new CNN/ORC poll finds Ted Cruz’s defiant stand at the GOP convention appears to have backfired.
While 60% of Republican voters had a positive impression of the former presidential candidate before the convention, just 33% have one now.
Trump Won’t Accept Cruz Endorsement
Sen. Ted Cruz won’t endorse Donald Trump, but the Republican nominee told CNN that he wouldn’t take the support even if the Texas senator offered.
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