As the 2024 election season approaches its final week, Democrats are in an uphill fight to retain control of the US Senate. The party is defending seats in close races across the country – and they have little if any margin for error.
Their slim hopes in the upper congressional chamber – gatekeeper for substantive legislation and responsible for confirming Supreme Court justices and senior presidential administration appointees – may hinge on their hopes of unseating Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.
Texas is certainly an unlikely place for Democrats to be placing their faith. A Democrat hasn’t won a contest there in three decades. The Lone Star State seems perennially just out of reach for Democrats, raising their hopes only to resoundingly dash them on election day.
The Texas government churns out a steady stream of right-wing policies on immigration, abortion, education and other hot-button cultural issues. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win there was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Cruz is a two-term incumbent with a national network of support dating to his 2016 bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He won the Iowa caucuses that year with the backing of evangelical voters and went on to finish second behind Donald Trump.
The former corporate lawyer and Supreme Court clerk has built a reputation as a conservative firebrand in the Senate, pushing for government shutdowns to advance his political priorities and often engaging in heated exchanges in committee hearings and media appearances.
Despite all this, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in Houston on Friday, holding a rally with the party’s Senate candidate, congressman Colin Allred.
