Cruz Says Republicans Blew the Cost of Living Fight and Vows to ‘Bring Texas Back’
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Republicans lost Tuesday because they failed to hear voters screaming about the cost of living, calling the midterms an “a** kicking” for the GOP.
Cruz posted a lengthy reckoning on X the evening after the election, the Washington Examiner reported, noting pre-election polls that showed prices as voters’ top concern.
“The top issue, cost of living, is very real,” Cruz wrote, according to the Washington Examiner. “Too many in politics dismissed it. They didn’t understand.”
He said colleagues pointed to soaring stock markets, record median income and record-low poverty. “Those data are true, but they don’t tell all of the story,” Cruz wrote, the Examiner reported.
“Republican politicians seem like they didn’t understand or they didn’t care,” he added. “Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high.”
Iran, Tariffs and a Blue Texas Warning
Cruz briefly tied the pain to the Iran war and tariffs. “Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long,” he wrote, according to the Examiner.
“It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end, and we should never, under any circumstances, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars,” Cruz said, the Washington Examiner reported.
Vice President JD Vance has likewise blamed the “bluenami” on the war’s economic fallout, the Examiner noted, putting Cruz’s cost-of-living focus alongside the White House’s own postmortem fight.
Cruz said he is now the only statewide elected Republican in Texas after Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico and Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa won, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter. But Texas, today at least, is blue,” Cruz wrote, the Examiner reported.
He still promised a comeback. “But hear me now: we will bring Texas back,” Cruz said. “We have not suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing pinko commie liberals.”
“We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives,” he wrote, according to the Examiner.
Cruz said he would work with Democrats in Washington and Austin “when they’re willing to be reasonable,” while warning of the “madness” that awaits under unified Democratic control, the Washington Examiner reported.
Cruz is a possible 2028 presidential candidate, and his post positions cost-of-living failures — not only the Iran war — as the core lesson of Tuesday night, the Washington Examiner reported.
He said Republicans must “listen and respond,” “champion economic policies that make a real difference in working people’s lives,” and “deal with the consequences,” according to the Examiner.
“I am filled with hope and optimism. Texas will be red again,” Cruz wrote, framing the rebuild around the free-market model that “built the Texas economic miracle in the first place,” the Washington Examiner reported.
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