Why Texas Senator Ted Cruz may now be the perfect opponent for Democrats

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For Democrats who see the possibility of securing new votes in Texas, Ted Cruz has the makings of an ideal opponent. In the six years since he narrowly won re-election, the Texas Republican senator has played a pivotal role in remaking the abortion landscape in the United States. His home state now enforces one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

In this year’s election, Democrats have used the experience of women in Texas to make the case for their party, with restoration of abortion access a central part of national campaigns. And the party sees potential for an upset in the Republican-dominated state. In recent weeks, Democratic funding arms have directed millions of dollars toward television advertising in Texas and Florida in hopes they can take Mr. Cruz’s seat – a gain that could prove pivotal to maintaining the party’s senate majority.

Colin Allred, the Democratic lawyer and former football player who is challenging Mr. Cruz in the election, has sought to pin the state’s abortion restrictions on his opponent.

“We are experiencing an extreme abortion ban here in Texas that’s putting women’s lives in danger because of him,” Mr. Allred said in a recent video posted to social media.

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Mr. Cruz, a lawyer with a talent for rankling opponents, has long been a target for Democrats. “If you’re a really partisan left-wing Democrat, after Donald Trump, there is nobody in the country you want to beat more than me,” Mr. Cruz himself has said.

But the bid to unseat Mr. Cruz may also point to the limits of the Democratic effort to win on abortion at a time when such concerns are, for many Americans, outweighed by other priorities. In Texas, there are also signs the Democratic stand on abortion is out of step with too many voters.

Unlike in 2018, when Mr. Cruz last defended his senate seat, he is running on a ballot with Donald Trump, who took Texas by nine points in 2016 and nearly six points in 2020.

To win, Mr. Allred “has to attract Trump votes,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant in the state.

For at least some of those voters, the question will be whether they care more about adopting a harsher approach to recent cross-border migrants and electing new economic leadership than they do about preserving national abortion access.

“For a lot, I think the answer is yes,” Mr. Mackowiak said.

Mr. Cruz has said he supports the right of individual states to decide abortion law, but has made little mention of the issue in this year’s campaign. He declined comment when asked by The Globe and Mail. It’s an indication, supporters say, that he sees little to gain in raising the topic.

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For Democrats, it’s a reflection of a vulnerability.

Two major events have altered Mr. Cruz’s political standing in the past six years, said Matt Angle, who founded the Lone Star Project, a funding organization that works to elect Democrats in the state. The first was his flight to Cancun during a 2021 winter storm that left millions of Texans without power. The second was the end of Roe v. Wade, an outcome Mr. Cruz – who has sought the presidency and was mooted by Mr. Trump as a potential Supreme Court justice – had helped to realize.

Mr. Cruz played a key role in nominating district court judges whose decisions altered the course of abortion law. And he joined with other Senate Republicans to block Democrats from selecting a Supreme Court justice in the final months of Barack Obama’s presidency, clearing the way for Mr. Trump to nominate the three conservatives whose votes overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Mr. Cruz called that decision “nothing short of a massive victory.”

For Mr. Allred to win, he must increase his share of the vote by five to six percentage points, Mr. Angle said. That requires appealing to people who would otherwise reflexively lean Republican, but are open to other ideas.

“A significant number of those will be people that reject Cruz based on his inflexible and aggressive stand against women’s ability to make their own choices about their health care,” Mr. Angle added.

Texas has among the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, with exceptions only for a threat to the life of the mother.

“For Allred, this race is much more about using abortion as a mobilization tool for young women who may otherwise not turn out to vote in large numbers,” said Mark Jones, a Texas pollster who has tracked the tightening senate race.

But, Mr. Jones said, it is a delicate balancing act. “The Allred campaign doesn’t want to make it a referendum on abortion – because that can potentially be a losing issue.”

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Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said she supports a return to the protections once afforded under Roe v. Wade, but has avoided any mention of what limits to abortion she supports, if any. That has provided an opening for Republicans to argue that even if Texas abortion law is among the most severe in the country, it is more in line with voter preferences.

The predominant view on abortion is farther away from the Democratic view than the Republican view,” said Matt Rinaldi, a former chair of the Republican Party of Texas.

Just under half of Texans want fewer restrictions on abortion, the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas Austin has found. But 43 per cent are happy with the state’s current rules, or want even greater restrictions. And a considerably greater number favour complete bans over no restrictions in cases of rape or incest.

Democrats, meanwhile, worry that abortion no longer creates voter urgency. Texans have experienced abortion restrictions in various forms for decades.

Years of warning about the dire consequences of such restrictions has inured some to the message, said Jaime Mercado, a Houston-based Democratic strategist.

“A lot of voters in Texas are a little numb to it,” he said.

“Too many people have kind of accepted the reality of it.”