National Republicans stunned by Donald Trump’s takeover of their party again find themselves in a position that was simply unthinkable a few months ago: praying Ted Cruz wins. For those hoping to protect the GOP’s increasingly fragile Senate Majority, the goal now is to nominate the lesser of two evils. It’s not lost on them or on us that in the modern Republican Party, the “lesser evil” is Senator Cruz.
However, Senator Cruz cannot save the #PartyofTrump. Don’t just take our word for it: former NRSC Communications Director Brian Walshnoted “how problematic Cruz would be as the nominee has been obscured by the Trump circus.”
Cruz’s out-of-touch brand of obstructionist fringe politics will be yet another obstacle for vulnerable Senate incumbents and candidates across the country and Cruz at the top of the ticket could be just as bad if not worse for the Republicans’ majority status.
WE’RE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN…
Roll Call: Republicans: Cruz Bigger Threat to Senate Majority Than Trump
Republicans are worried a Donald Trump nomination could threaten the party’s chances of holding the Senate and winning seats in the House.
But they’re even more concerned about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who surpassed Trump in Iowa polling this weekend and has been gaining in national polls.
Associated Press: Cruz No Favorite With Fellow Republican Senators
Republican senators are confronting an unsettling possibility: Sen. Ted Cruz, their least favorite colleague, stands within reach of becoming the party’s presidential nominee and standard-bearer.
Worse than that, many GOP lawmakers and aides fear the Texas senator could ruin Republicans’ chances of hanging onto control of the Senate in November’s elections, alienating voters in a half-dozen key swing states with his hardline stances on issues from immigration to abortion.
The Hill: GOP senators: Anyone but Cruz
Jittery Republican senators think Donald Trump would actually give them a better chance of keeping their Senate majority if he were the party’s presidential nominee instead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
CNN: The Ted Cruz pile on: GOP senators warn of revolt should he win nomination
Asked if he’d prefer Trump over Cruz, Graham said: “It’s a lot like being shot or poisoned: I think you get the same result.”
Politico: Senate GOP grieves over Trump, Cruz as nominee
Even Cruz, the most loathed man in the chamber, is drawing far less fire than usual as he concentrates more on the campaign and less on tweaking his Senate colleagues.
The Hill: Leader McConnell warns GOP voters: We need candidates ‘who can win’
“We’d like to have a nominee who can carry purple states because unless the nominee for president can carry purple states, he’s not going to get elected,” he said.
It was a veiled shot at the GOP presidential front-runners: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson.
New York Times: Ted Cruz’s Prospects Ascendant, Though Perhaps Not with Senate Peers
Mr. Cruz is one of the least popular senators on Capitol Hill, in large part because he masterminded the 2013 government shutdown in a failed attempt to roll back President Obama’s health care law, something Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, said at the time was “the dumbest idea I have ever heard.”
Bloomberg: Cruz’s Rise Against Trump Fails to Win Over Senate Colleagues
Republican senators’ antipathy for Cruz is the worst-kept secret in Washington, owing to bad blood as a result of Cruz’s scorched-earth tactics, such as forcing an unsuccessful government shutdown in 2013 and calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the floor of the chamber last year. The widespread perception remains that Cruz is willing to throw his colleagues under the bus to boost his own ambitions.
Huffington Post: Senate GOP Tries To Like Ted Cruz The Way You Have To Hug Your Sweaty Cousin
As Republicans hem and haw over their lack of enthusiasm for Cruz, it doesn’t take a close look at the Texan’s brief Senate career to see what might be giving them pause.
Roll Call: Dem Senate Takeover Probable, if Cruz or Trump Nominee
With Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seemingly positioned to fight it out for the Republican presidential nomination, Democrats are now poised to take over the Senate in November.
…Given what has happened inside the Republican Party over the past few months, it is difficult to believe that the party’s Senate prospects are as good as they once were, when most observers assumed the GOP would nominate a mainstream candidate.
TAKE OFF THE TRUMP GOGGLES: CRUZ IS NUTS, TOO
Headlines like the above do not just write themselves, and Senator Cruz did his part to not only earn the ire of his colleagues in Washington but also establish an ultra-conservative record that will turn off moderates and independent voters in swing states across the country – especially those in state that President Obama won twice.
Senator Cruz lead the Tea Party driven 16-day government shutdown, a political stunt that cost an estimated $24 billion and solidified his reputation as an ideologue incapable of compromise.
He has called Social Security a ‘Ponzi scheme,’ and has repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
As Donald Trump’s despicable comments on abortion reminded millions of Americans: Republicans want to overturn Roe v. Wade. Cruz is one of the loudest voices on this platform, which would undermine the legal protections to obtain a safe abortion and criminalize the doctors who perform them. We’ll pose the same question to Senator Cruz as we did to his colleagues up for reelection: What punishment would you inflict on doctors?
In an effort to outdo Trump’s outrageous proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, Senator Cruz floated his own idea: policing and patrolling Muslim neighborhoods – an idea that was quickly dismissed by security experts, including NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton who said: “we do not single out any populace, black, white, yellow or brown for selective enforcement.”
Given what voters have heard about Ted Cruz, it’s no wonder that on just 33 percent trust him to nomine a Supreme Court justice. A startling 57 percent flatly do not trust him to make a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court.
LIKE TRUMP, CRUZ WILL MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR SENATE CANDIDATES TO RUN THEIR OWN RACES
If Cruz could contain his caustic candidacy and limit the impact on other races, Republicans would not be quite as panicked. However, they know that their candidates down ballot will have to answer for the top of the ticket and there’s no shortage of controversy where Cruz is concerned.
That’s a problem for Senators Kelly Ayotte, Pat Toomey, Mark Kirk, Rob Portman, Ron Johnson, Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, John McCain and Chuck Grassley, and GOP candidates in Florida, Nevada, Colorado and Indiana.
They will try to run their own races but Cruz will force them to answer for their out-of-touch records – from standing with him to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood to bombastic national security ideas that make our country less safe. Along the way, voters will come to reject their politics for candidates who will truly represent their interests in the U.S. Senate.
