Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said on Wednesday that Democrats’ historic sweep in the midterm elections was a “kick in the butt” for the Republican Party and urged the party to deliver on its economic promises in the next cycle.
“This is not just a bad 2006 midterm election, it’s a Watergate-level repudiation,” Cruz said on one of his podcasts, describing the nationwide Democratic shift as a “blue tsunami.”
Cruz, who won’t be up for re-election until 2030, said “people are understandably angry” because “Republicans are not doing enough to address their real pain.”
He noted that tariffs have raised costs and that the Iran war has dragged on “for too long,” adding, “Food prices are too high, gas prices are too high, diesel prices are too high, insurance prices are too high, living prices are too high.”
“Too many Republican politicians don’t seem to understand or care,” he said.
An NBC News exit poll found that more than 80% of voters said they were worried about the price of essential goods: gas and diesel, food and groceries, utilities and health care.
“We need to listen and respond. We need to support economic policies that truly change the lives of working people, and we need to deal with the consequences,” Cruz said.
Cruz said he did call his new colleague, Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico, to congratulate him on his victory.
“When Democrats are willing to be reasonable, I will work with them,” he said. “It was a good conversation and I told him I looked forward to working with him to try to benefit the state of Texas.”
However, he also said, “Texas is going to turn red again.”
“We didn’t suddenly turn into a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing pink communist liberals. That’s not who we are. Texas is still Texas,” Cruz said. “We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism but by becoming a true free-market conservative.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also acknowledged the party’s economic shortcomings in his own analysis of the election. Cornyn lost the Republican Senate primary in May to state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Cornyn wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal that by 2024, voters will “trust Mr. Trump and Republicans, not Kamala Harris and Democrats, to protect their wallets.”
However, Cornyn also believes that the party has “forgot” how to win elections and has instead favored “performance politics”.
“When Republicans force voters to choose between policy and personal character, it’s unfair to them and suicidal to us,” he wrote. “We know what the American people want because they’ve shown us: a big-tent Republican Party that is capable and focused on Americans’ everyday problems, with space for traditional conservatives and MAGA supporters.”
“Anyone willing to turn over a new leaf, restore integrity, and rebuild our party can count me in,” Cornyn wrote.
Democrats scored statewide victories on Tuesday, with Talarico ending 38 years of Republican control of the Senate seat and Gina Hinojosa making history as Texas’ first Latina governor and the first Democratic governor in more than three decades.