Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz is brimming with optimism ahead of the midterms saying that he believes that there will be “not just a red wave, but a red tsunami”.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Mr Cruz said he thinks the GOP will “retake the House and the Senate”.
He added that the results could be similar to the 2010 midterms because of “the magnitude of change the voters are looking for”.
In 2010, the GOP gained seven seats in the Senate, including a seat won in a January special election, and 63 seats in the House. The Republicans also gained six governorships in an election that then-President Barack Obama called a “shellacking”.
Fox was speaking to Mr Cruz at the end of his bus tour in support of other candidates – mostly Republicans that GOP leadership would have preferred to have lost their primaries.
“Republican leadership tends to flood cash behind moderate candidates who will take orders from leadership, and they leave conservatives often gasping for oxygen – conservatives who are strong, viable candidates, but they leave them severely underfunded,” Mr Cruz told Fox. “I think leadership should stay out of primaries … when they get involved in primaries, they’re almost consistently wrong.”
“They consistently back moderates against conservatives, and they often lose when they do it,” he said.
Speaking of current senators elected in 2010, Mr Cruz said that “Senate leadership got actively involved against Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey”.
“They backed the more moderate candidate because they didn’t want a more conservative candidate, and that went so badly for the Senate leadership,” he said.
“In my lifetime, I have never seen so much damage done to our nation in two short years,” Mr Cruz said. “Every single policy being rammed through by the radicals who have taken over the Democratic Party has been a disaster.”
He said that inflation is “out of control, gas prices are skyrocketing, crime is out of control, and people’s families are in real jeopardy”.
“Illegal immigration is at historic highs, and we have chaos at our southern border,” he claimed. “America’s standing in the world has been profoundly weakened as every enemy of America has grown stronger and stronger under this administration’s weakness and appeasement.”
“I think Americans across the country desperately want to change the path we’re on,” he said.
Asked about the 2024 presidential race, Mr Cruz dodged the question.
“There will be plenty of time for people to focus on 2024 in the months to come. My focus right now is laser-focused on the elections on Tuesday – the 2022 elections,” he told Fox. “We’ve got to retake both the House and the Senate and I think it is critical that we have a majority and that we use that majority, and my focus is also on electing strong conservatives.”
“The $64,000 question, obviously, is what does Donald Trump do?” Mr Cruz said.
It’s been reported that Mr Trump could announce his 2024 run for the White House as soon as 14 November.
“The honest answer is, nobody knows. Anybody who tells you they know is making things up,” Mr Cruz said. “He’s gonna make his decision, I don’t know what his timing will be.”
“One of the prerogatives he gets as the former president is the prerogative to make that decision and then everyone else is going to react accordingly once he does,” he added.
