The Christmas tree and decorations walking into the Marriott Marquis in downtown Houston seemed to indicate that Santa would deliver an early present for Republicans.
Out in front, Senator Ted Cruz parked his campaign bus. Along with the countless white marker signatures, it featured a slogan: “Keep Texas Texas,” as if to sell the idea that outsiders are seeking to change its uniquely conservative culture with their wokeness and liberalism.
But while the first floor of the hotel was a winter wonderland, the second floor of the hotel where Cruz held his celebration might as well have been called Cruz’s Conservative Cabal. Even before news outlets called the race for Cruz, attendees sipping drinks celebrated each time a state was called for Donald Trump.
At one point, campaign officials began tossing t-shirts into the audience. All of this seemed to be a precursor to Trump running the table in many of the battleground districts.
To be fair, this is Texas, where no Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994. It has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1976, when Jimmy Carter won the state.
Still, six years ago, Cruz found himself in a surprisingly tough fight against Beto O’Rourke in his first race for re-election after his failed run for president. It was during that primary that Trump called Curz’s wife ugly and claimed his father was connected to President John F Kennedy’s assassination.
But election results throughout the state showed that this would not be the case in his match against Colin Allred, the former NFL linebacker who failed to tackle Cruz.
In a sign of the Trump-i-fication of the Republican Party, much of the party playlist included some of Trump’s favorites – Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and The Village People’s “YMCA”.
Ironically, shortly after Fox News called his race, the party spun “Takin’ Care of Business,” by Bachman–Turner Overdrive, which like Cruz, originally hailed from Canada. Later on, the party bumped “Summer of ‘69” by Bryan Adams and “Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young, who also hailed from the Great White North. How does someone keep Texas Texas if Canadians keep hanging out in the Lone Star state?
And in the spirit of his fiscal conservatism, the bar was not open to reporters but instead, had to pay for a $7 Coca-Cola.
As of Tuesday evening, with 85 percent of precincts reporting, Cruz looked on track to deliver a double digit win, something more respectable for a Texas Republican. Consequently, he walked on to “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. A son of a pastor, Cruz gave the best invocation he could.
“To God be the glory,” he said, before he thanked his wife Heidi, whom Trump insulted.
“It also looks very likely that we’re going to have a Republican Senate next year,” he said to even more applause, before offering the cherry on top. “And I believe, and I hope and pray that Donald Trump will be re-elected as president of the United States.”
When his supporters chanted “build the wall”, he simply replied: “We’re going to.”
Indeed, Cruz’s victory served as a microcosm of the GOP’s larger wallopping across the country, particularly with non-white voters, which he remarked upon.
“Tonight, we are witnessing incredible results, especially with Hispanics, across the state of Texas,” he said to applause. “And we are seeing tonight, generational change in South Texas.”
A Cruz victory built on the inroads that Trump made, which he knew would confound Democrats, who have long believed that Latinos would be put off by Republicans’ hawkish rhetoric on immigration.
“The results tonight, this decisive victory, should shake the Democrat establishment to its core,” he said.
Cruz has always enjoyed antagonizing not just Democrats but also the Republican establishment. He also seems to take special pleasure in the fact that despite the fact that liberals despise him, as a Senator from Texas, he keeps winning.
And now, he not only has an even bigger margin of victory that he can use to stick in the eye of Democrats and the GOP establishment; he earned it despite high-tailing it to Cancun during a storm in Texas in 2021 and regularly spending as much time on his podcast as he does legislating.
As of right now, the networks are hesitant to make a definitive call that Trump won. But like the Mexican restaurant at the Marriott that elected to play college football instead of election results, it offered a nice appetizer for what would be a conservative feast that would include a potential return to the White House and a GOP majority.
Democrats genuinely hoped they could knock off Cruz. But that massive loss and potentially being locked out of the White House will likely give them something to chew on that is more coarse than three-day old beef brisket.
