EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Ted Cruz said he is “incredibly optimistic” heading into Tuesday’s midterm elections, saying he is confident there will be a “red tsunami,” and predicting big victories for Republicans in the House and Senate.
Cruz, R-Texas, during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital at the end of his month-long bus tour, said he believes Republicans will “retake the House and the Senate.”
“I am incredibly optimistic,” he said. “I think this is going to be, not just a red wave, but a red tsunami.”
Cruz predicted that Tuesday’s election results could mirror the 2010 election due to “the magnitude of change the voters are looking for.”
Cruz’s nationwide bus tour, which began in October and concluded over the weekend, hit 17 states and 25 cities in support of 29 candidates.
“We traveled more than 9,000 miles for 29 different candidates,” Cruz said, adding that he and helped to raise more than $4 million for candidates across the country, including for Karoline Leavitt, the Republican nominee in New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district; Texas GOP congressional candidates Cassy Garcia, Mayra Flores, and Monica De La Cruz; Virginia’s GOP congressional nominee Yesli Vega and more.
Cruz had participated in 59 political events and rallies for other candidates as well, holding 34 fundraisers and endorsing 65 candidates for the general election.
Most of the candidates Cruz supported in the primaries, who became the Republican nominee in their races, were conservative candidates that did not tend to be favorites of GOP leadership.
“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,” Cruz said. “I think leadership should stay out of primaries…when they get involved in primaries, they’re almost consistently wrong.”
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He added, “They consistently back moderates against conservatives, and they often lose when they do it.”
Again referencing the 2010 midterm elections, Cruz said “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.
Meanwhile, in his final pitch to voters, Cruz told Fox News Digital that “the path we’re on is profoundly wrong.”
“In my lifetime, I have never seen so much damage done to our nation in two short years,” Cruz said. “Every single policy being rammed through by the radicals who have taken over the Democratic Party has been a disaster.”
Cruz said 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,” Cruz continued. “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.”
He added, “I think Americans across the country desperately want to change the path we’re on.”
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Cruz said he has asked prospective voters this question at each campaign stop he’s made, “Is your life better now than it was before Joe Biden became president?”
“And if you happen to be a Big Tech billionaire, or a human trafficker, or a fentanyl dealer, then the answer is clearly yes, and you probably ought to vote for the Democrat,” Cruz said.
“But if you’re not, if you’re a truck driver or a steelworker or a cop or a firefighter or a teacher or a waiter or a waitress or a mom or a senior on retirement or a young person coming out of school, your life has gotten much, much tougher under radical left-wing policies,” Cruz said.
“And this election is absolutely critical to pulling us back from the brink, where our nation finds herself,” he said.
Cruz, who ran for president in 2016, has been floated as a potential GOP candidate for the White House in 2024, but when pressed for an answer on his plans for the next presidential cycle, he punted.
“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,” Cruz said. “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.”
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Cruz, though, said that in 2024, “the $64,000 question, obviously, is what does Donald Trump do?”
“The honest answer is, nobody knows. Anybody who tells you they know is making things up,” Cruz said. “He’s gonna make his decision, I don’t know what his timing will be.”
The former president first told Fox News Digital in November 2021 that he would wait until after the midterm elections to make any sort of announcement regarding his 2024 plans. He has kept to that timeline, but, in recent days, has elevated his language during rallies, further signaling his intentions to mount a third presidential campaign.
Cruz added, “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.”