Texas Democratic operatives have launched a Super PAC dedicated to ousting Ted Cruz from his U.S. Senate seat in the 2024 election.
The Super PAC, filed with the Federal Election Commission under the name “Lose Cruz,” claims it will focus on defeating Cruz in the general election no matter who the Democratic nominee for Senate is.
Dallas-area congressman and former NFL player Colin Allred has announced his intention to challenge Cruz, but San Antonio-area state Sen. Roland Gutierrez is also widely expected to announce his candidacy.
The primary is anticipated to be tightly contested, as opposed to the consolidated effort Democrats placed behind Beto O’ Rourke in 2018.
The Super PAC counts prominent Democratic consultants and activists among its leadership, including Sean Haynes and Olivia Julianna. The PAC claims it will spend millions of dollars on targeted digital ads and broader voter contact.
“Cruz represents a clear and present danger to American democracy. His destructive brand of politics and extremism has divided our country and limited our freedoms,” the PAC claims on its website.
Cruz, however, does not believe the PAC poses a serious threat to his re-election effort and accused the PAC of being a front for Allred’s Senate ambitions.
Cruz spokesperson Macarena Martinez released a statement on behalf of the senator, slamming Allred as a radical candidate who is not well known.
“He has no name ID and is running on a radical leftist record that Texans have rejected time and time again.”
Polling shows that Cruz’s race might be closer than his spokeswoman suggested, though.
A mid-May poll conducted by the University of Texas-Tyler found that Allred trails Cruz by five points.
Texas Democrats are hoping those numbers will give them a chance to break a multi-decade string of statewide losses, the longest shutout of statewide elected Democrats in any state in the U.S.
