Ted Cruz’s Final Pitch
With the Election just days away, Ted Cruz is making his final pitch to voters. As part of his last appeal Cruz is banking on bigotry and transphobia. His biggest ad buys this campaign season have involved commercials claiming his challenger Colin Allred supports men in women’s sports, and that he is bankrolling gender change operations.
The anti-trans ads have been ubiquitous on stations around Texas. And they have also gotten Cruz into hot water. A school district in Oregon called on him to pull one of the anti-trans ads because they allege he used a photo of two minor girls without permission. According to the Cruz campaign the ads have been taken off television, but they are still circulating digitally.
The focus on transgender issues appears purposeful from Cruz. He continues to dodge questions about abortion, even telling a CNN reporter this week that it’s only the press who cares about that issue. In his debate with Allred Cruz was asked multiple times if he supported the current Texas abortion ban, which has no exceptions for rape or incest. Cruz never responded. And at one point during the debate he repeated the false claim that a transgender boxer competed in the Olympics (something he also said on his podcast).
The unrelenting attacks on the trans community are not surprising for Sean Meloy, the Vice President of Political Programs at LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, a PAC that supports LGBTQ+ candidates across the country. Cruz’s ads are part of a national trend where Republican candidates have been running anti-trans ads. Meloy describes that as “unfortunate,” but also counterproductive. “We know that when it comes to this message actually persuading independent voters, they largely are unsuccessful,” he told Texas Signal.
Meloy noted that Cruz is a particular bad actor when it comes to targeting the trans community. Part of that likely stems from the major advances the LGBTQ community has made in entertainment and even politics. According to LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, Republicans around the country have spent over $100 million on anti-trans ads. Cruz’s foray into that spending is a curious choice for Meloy because there is “no positive forward-thinking message” he’s telling Texas voters.
That may be because Cruz’s actual congressional record is quite lacking. As he runs for re-election, he keeps touting his bipartisan credentials and that he has authored over one hundred pieces of legislation. Except that’s not true. Since he was sworn in as a Senator in 2013, Cruz has only sponsored four bills that became law. And he co-sponsored 57 bills that became law.
He also trying to celebrate recent investments and projects in Texas from legislation that he voted against. Earlier this year he introduced legislation to repeal a natural gas tax in the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA has been a boon for Texas, which leads the nation in green energy.
In these final days of campaigning, Cruz was confronted by a reporter about the recent story from ProPublica about Josseli Barnica, a women in Texas who died from a miscarriage just days after Senate Bill 8 was enacted. Because of the abortion ban Barnica waited 40 hours for the proper miscarriage care and died from an infection.
Cruz told a reporter that Barnica’s death was “heartbreaking” and a “tragedy.” He also claimed that the Texas abortion laws do have exceptions to save the life of the mother. Many medical professional dispute Cruz’s assertion. ProPublica also published another story about a Texas woman, 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who died from pregnancy complications after three different visits to hospitals.
