Ted Cruz vows to make Texas ‘red again’ after midterms deliver ‘Watergate-level repudiation’ of GOP

Sen. Ted Cruz has described Republicans’ midterm losses as a “Watergate-level repudiation,” blaming the defeat on voters’ frustration over the rising cost of living and widespread criticism of Donald Trump’s tariffs and the prolonged war with Iran. “2026 was not simply a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami. It was an ass-kicking. It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate-level repudiation,” Cruz wrote in a lengthy X post.

Cruz, now Texas’ last remaining statewide GOP lawmaker, argued the GOP’s disastrous election outcome must be “reckoned with.” “When all the votes were counted, the problem wasn’t turnout. Instead, our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, showed up and voted, and rejected our candidates, voting Democrat instead,” he continued. “Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas,”

Democrats swept across Texas on Tuesday. Talarico ended 38 years of GOP control of the Senate seat, while Gina Hinojosa made history as both the state’s first Hispanic governor and its first Democratic governor in more than thirty years. Three-term Gov. Greg Abbott and Senate hopeful Ken Paxton were among those defeated.

Cruz vows to rebuild the Republican party

Republicans lost every statewide race, including contests for lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, and agriculture, railroad, and land commissioner. Democrats also won all four Texas Supreme Court seats up for election and swept the Texas Board of Education races.

Cruz argued that “too many Republican politicians seemed not to understand, or didn’t care, about voters’ top concern: the cost of living.” NBC News exit polls showed more than 80% of voters worried about the prices of necessities such as gas and diesel fuel, food and groceries, utilities, and healthcare. “Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long,” he said, breaking with Trump. “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.”

He predicted “open persecution, and nonstop retaliation” against Trump, his family, administration officials, and business leaders, singling out entrepreneur Elon Musk as a potential target. “Make no mistake. Nationally, the radicals are in charge. The communists and the Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party have now taken over the United States Congress. They will be unleashed,” Cruz wrote.

Cruz also warned that Democrats would use their sweeping victories to push policies he staunchly opposes on taxes, energy, immigration, and transgender rights. He lamented that “Texas will become more like California” if Democrats succeed in enacting what he called a radical agenda. Before the elections, Cruz blamed the “transgender witches” behind tight Senate polls.

Nonetheless, Cruz also called for rebuilding the Republican Party “as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives,” he wrote. Still, despite the sweeping defeats, Cruz expressed his optimism that Republicans could eventually reclaim their standing in Texas. “Texas will be red again,” he said. “We have not suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing pinko commie liberals. That ain’t us. Texas is still Texas.”