Election Disaster: How We Rebuild

Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. It's so nice to have you with us also on radio stations all over the country. Thanks for joining us. And a reminder, this show, if you're listening on the radio, is also a podcast. Three days a week, you can download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts. All right, the hangover is somewhat moving. I feel like we're recovering, Senator, a little bit. It was a brutal week, many people listening for the first time on radio. With the midterm elections, we've got a lot more data now about what happened on Tuesday, and we're going to break that down for people so that they understand everything that we're getting out of this. Well, look, Tuesday was a bloodbath, and it is a message from the voters. The voters are pissed off. They're angry. A great many voters, at the end of the day, their lives... ...have been harder the last couple of years. Yeah. It's been harder to pay the rent. It's been harder to pay the mortgage. It's been harder to feed the kids. It's been harder to buy groceries. It's been harder to fill the tank. Every expense in life has gotten harder. And people are angry. And they express that rage really in a volcanic rage on Election Day. And I will say a lot of us who are engaged in the political world professionally We knew the election day was going to be bad. Yeah. We knew that it was likely, very likely, we're going to lose the House. And we knew it was likely we're going to lose the Senate. That being said, and to be clear, I said on this podcast, there's a very real chance that we could lose as many as 10 Senate seats. I said that on this pod. Yeah. I also said we could end up losing every single statewide election in Texas. Now, I got to say, when I said that. I don't think a lot of people believe me. They sort of viewed it as, okay, that's just ringing the alarm bell, trying to scare people. That can't really happen. And then, holy cow, and I was looking at the numbers. I was like, this is bad. I'm seeing a wave growing, and it's getting bigger, and it's getting bigger, and it's getting bigger, and it's taller than the buildings, and holy cow, it keeps getting bigger. So I'm seeing that. Yeah. And I'm trying to say, let's not have this happen. Let's show up. Let's vote. Let's vote against this. But as bad as I thought it was going to be, Tuesday was worse. Yeah. I thought we were going to lose the Senate. We could lose 10 or 11 Senate seats. We're still waiting on Mississippi and Alaska to be decided. I hope we hold on to those two. But it is, we're already at 54 Democrats. We could be at 56. That is generationally damaging. Yeah. That means... By the way, explain why that's generationally damaging when you get up to 54, 55, 56. I want you to answer that, but before we get to that, I want to tell you about Patriot Mobile. 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You can keep your same number, keep your phone, upgrade to a new one, and you can switch your home or your office or your business or small business in just a few minutes. Call Patriot Mobile. You're going to talk to someone right here in America. Superior coverage, superior products, and most importantly, They put your money back to work on the things that protect all of us. So go to PatriotMobile.com slash verdict or 972 Patriot. Use the promo code verdict for a free month of service. That's PatriotMobile.com slash verdict or 972 Patriot today. All right, Senator, you just said a moment ago. That this is generational harm that can be done. If the Democrats do get to 55, 56 votes in the Senate, explain why that is so different than if it was 51, 52. Well, look, Senate races are very different from House races. House races, every two years, all 435 House races are on the ballot. So we can get obliterated. We could lose 300 seats in the House, and the next year we could pick up 100 of those back. Now, that's a bigger swing than typically happens. But the point is, every single one of them is on the ballot every two years. The Senate is different. We have six year terms in the Senate. So every two years, only a third of the Senate is on the ballot. That means two years from now, all of the losses we had this election, we can't turn We can turn any of them around. We can turn zero of them around. It will take six years to have the chance to turn them around. So we lost races in bright red states. Kansas. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Yeah. We'll flip Kansas the next time around. We will flip if we lose Mississippi. I don't know if we are going to or not. I hope we don't. But if we lose Mississippi, we'll flip it in six years. I believe we will flip Texas in six years. There are a bunch of red states we will flip. But we don't get to flip it in 2026. That election's done. We're not going to be able to flip it in 2030 because they're not on the ballot. We're not going to be able to, in 2028, rather, they're not on the ballot. We're not going to be able to flip it in 2030, they're not on the ballot. We have to wait until 2032, which is a really long time from now. Long time. Yeah, it is. It's a long time. We have to flip South Carolina. South Carolina just selected a Democrat. We'll flip South Carolina back, but for six years, we're going to have a Democrat. Retaking the majority in the Senate is very, very difficult. The map is less favorable in two years. We've got to win in some more purple and blue states. Now, we might. We're going to make, I think, 2028 is going to be a really good Republican year, ironically, because 2026 was such a bad Republican year that the Democrats who are in power, they're going to overreach. These guys, they're drunk on their own power. They are high on their own supply. The radicals are running the Democrat Party. The Marxists and Islamists are in charge. And they believe they have a mandate. Now, by the way, they ran the whole campaign on affordability and prices. And now they're all about subpoenas and attack and rage and socialism and Islamism and DEI. And we're going to trans your kids like it is. Everything they talked about in the election is going to be forgotten. And I got to say, the voters who were annoyed at $4 gas, they're going to be really annoyed after two, four, six years of Democrat policies when you see $6 gas, $8 gas, $10 gas, because that's what the Democrats want. One of the big differences, Republicans want gas prices to be lower. Democrats want them higher. Why? Because they want to ban gasoline engines. They want to force us all to drive little Priuses. And so the people who were pissed and understandably pissed and said, I'm mad at you. I'm voting the other side. Every issue they were mad about is going to get worse, but it's going to take some time to turn this around. The good news is we are going to turn this around. I am optimistic. I believe Texas will be red again. And we're going to flip the country. We're not going to socialism. Senator, you put out a special statement on this podcast that went viral. It went viral on social media. It went viral on YouTube. And I think it's really important that people hear exactly what you had to say right after the election. I want to play that now. Take a listen. History was made last night. For months, we were saying that 2026 was the most consequential midterm election of our lifetimes. Unfortunately, We were right. Sometimes history is to be celebrated. Other times it is to be mourned. Always it must be reckoned with. 2026 was not simply a blue wave. It was a blue tsunami. It was an ass kicking. It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election. It was a Watergate level repudiation. What happened and why? What are the consequences? And where on earth do we go from When all the votes were counted, the problem wasn't turnout. Instead, our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, showed up and vote and rejected our candidates, voting Democrat instead. We've lost the House. We've lost the Senate. When all is said and done, we will have lost eight to ten Senate seats. We lost in historically red states like South Carolina and North Carolina, Kansas and Iowa. We lost in purple states like Michigan and New Hampshire and Georgia. And we just barely won by just a single point in bright red states like Florida and Louisiana. And then there's Texas. Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas. In the Lone Star State, we lost every single statewide election. For weeks, I had been publicly warning on this podcast. That we were in very real danger of losing everything in Texas. Far too few believed that was possible. I am very, very sorry that it came to pass. Texas has not had a Democrat governor since 1994. We haven't had a Democrat senator since 1993. Now we'll have both. Why were the results so overwhelming? Pundits and analysts will break down the results for weeks or months or even years to come. But several things are already evident today. Years ago, the very best political advice I ever got was from Heidi. She said, it's not about you. It's about them. It's about their kids, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their futures. Too many politicians forget that. Take the state of Kansas, for example. A state that has not elected a Democrat senator since 1932. It just did. Here's what exit polling showed were the top issues in Kansas. Number one, cost of living, energy, and groceries. That was listed as number one by 30.6% of voters. Corruption, number two, 18.5%. The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%. The candidates are terrible, 7.9%. The Canada trade war, 7.6%. The GOP didn't do enough to support Trump, 6.6%. Republicans didn't pass the Save America Act, 5.6%. Trump's focus on monuments, 5.5%. And data centers and AI, 3.8%. The top issue, cost of living, is very real. Too many in politics dismissed it. They didn't understand. They pointed to the macro numbers. Showing the stock market soaring, median income at record highs, and poverty at record lows. Those data are true, but they don't tell all of the story. Here are some stats that are a lot more real and personal. Spam, Hormel's processed meat substitute, broke record sales, selling 113 million cans last year. That is nearly as much spam as was sold during the entirety World War II. 29% of Americans have used buy now, pay later for groceries this year. That's double the share just two years ago. In August, banks repossessed 42% more homes than they did last year. In 2024, car repossessions topped 2.3 million, above the 2009 peak in the middle of the great financial crisis. In 2025, 6% of 401k holders took hardship withdrawals, paying penalties. That is a record and triple the norm. And here's one that's really stunning. Americans made more than 75 million paid plasma donations in 2026. That's another record. That means 200,000 Americans every single day with a needle in their arm just to pay for groceries. That is very real pain. from real Americans. And too many Republican politicians seem like they didn't understand, but they didn't care. Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high. Tariffs have made everything too expensive. And the Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end. And we should never, under any circumstances, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars. There's a very real economic disconnect. Our K-shaped economy is a yawning divide. Last year, we saw the world's very first trillionaire, a modern-day Thomas Edison, at the very same time that millions were struggling to feed their families. Data centers being constructed were turning billionaires into centibillionaires. While simultaneously, the average American's electricity bill went up 30% in the last five years. Understandably, people were pissed off. And elected Republicans didn't do enough to address their very real pain. So, what do we do now? We need to listen and respond. We need to champion economic policies that make a real difference in working people's lives. And we need to deal with the consequences. Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter. But Texas, today at least, is blue. As we sit here today, I am the only statewide elected Republican who remains in Texas. That's not something I ever thought I would say. We can be certain that the Democrats in Austin and in Washington will overshoot. In Texas, they will try to raise taxes dramatically. They may even try to adopt a state income tax. Or even a California wealth tax. They will try to shut down the energy industry, destroying jobs across our state. They will embrace the radical transgender agenda. They will persecute those they perceive to be enemies, especially Elon Musk. And in Washington, they will attack Trump every single day, constantly. Impeachment, hearings, subpoenas, his family, cabinet members, business leaders, open persecution and nonstop retaliation. Make no mistake, nationally, the radicals are in charge. The communists and the Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party have now taken over the United States Congress. They will be unleashed. Sadly, that means many Americans will be hurt. Texans will be hurt. Their assault on business will make Texas a much less attractive place to start or grow a small business. Texas will become more like California. If they succeed in halting all new investment into AI, the economic results will be dramatic. Over $700 billion in new projects are scheduled to start in the next year. If the Democrats shut them all down, our country will very likely go into a recession. That will suit the Democrats just fine. They'll just blame it all on Donald Trump. In the next two years, we need to do two things. One, fight the madness. I will work with Democrats when they're willing to be reasonable. Last night, I called James Tallarico. I congratulated him on his very impressive victory. It was a pleasant conversation. And I told him that I looked forward to working with him to try to benefit Texas. So if there are things like flood relief for the Hill Country, We're trying to get the Space Academy to Texas. He and I will work together. But if the newly elected radicals push policies that hurt Texas, raising taxes, destroying jobs, opening the border, releasing violent criminals, threatening our children, undermining our constitutional rights, I will fight with all of my strength to defend Texas and to defend the Constitution. And number two, we need to rebuild. Getting behind policies that directly benefit the constituents we lost. There's a complicated story, no doubt, of what happened on election day. But as I see it, the key constituencies we lost were blue-collar voters, what had rightly become the core base of our party. Evangelical Christians who didn't show up with the same numbers and fervor as prior elections. Farmers and ranchers. Tragically, we alienated rural America. Young people who excitedly had voted Republican in 2024 and who shifted hard blue this cycle. And of course, Hispanics. For Hispanics, there's a strong overlap with young people and blue-collar workers. In 2024, just two years ago, I was proud to carry Hispanics statewide in Texas by six points. And we swung the Rio Grande Valley red for the first time in a century. It can be done. But in this election, those Hispanic voters overwhelmingly went back Democrat. We have got to turn that around. And for young people, we need to be the party of the future. We need to champion policies that expand their future. Our two single biggest legislative accomplishments of the past two years, Trump accounts. And the school choice tax credit, which will unleash tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships for kids, are generationally powerful. I was proud to author both of those transformational policies. And yet too few candidates all across the country ran on that record. Too few voters were even aware of what we'd accomplished for their kids and their future. But we need to build. We need to expand to continue creating a new investor class. For hundreds of millions of Americans, help everyone, every American become an owner, to have real skin in the game, to create new generations of capitalists ready to reject socialism. People voted as they did because they were angry. Ironically, the Democrats that they elected are going to advance policies that will make affordability worse. The Democrats Democrats want gas prices higher. They want to ban gasoline engines altogether. Their extreme environmental mandates will drive up food prices and the prices of everything else. But hear me now. We will bring Texas back. I am filled with hope. Texas will be red again. We have not suddenly become a bunch of tofu-eating, gun-banning, tutu-wearing, pinko-commi liberals. That ain't us. Texas is still Texas. We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party. Not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives. The way we built the Texas economic miracle in the first place. And we will build. And rebuild America as well. When the zealots overreach, and they will, we will stand ready to lead in the direction of freedom, of prosperity, of safety and security and common sense. We will return to a new dawn of freedom in America. It is dark right now, but it is always darkest before the dawn. And morning is coming. That is my fervent prayer. And that is my commitment to you. All right, Senator, so you put out this big statement. You got a lot of feedback. I've been traveling the country. You've been around a lot of people talking about what happened on Tuesday. I think it's pretty clear that this may be one of the easiest problems that we've ever had in politics to fix. The people were blunt. about why Republicans lost. They felt like they were not listened to. They felt like they were left behind. They were struggling economically. They didn't care where the stock market was. It was, can they put food on the table? Can they send their kids to good schools? Can they have a better life? That's what it really came down to. Well, it may be an easy problem to fix, but it's not a quick problem to fix. This is going to take some time. And I got to say, the statement we just played is what I put out the day after the election, and it was when everything was just raw, and we were sort of stunned. You and I are now sitting here a couple of days later. And in Texas, I've traveled around a bit. I've spent much of the day in Abilene at Dyess Air Force Base. I've been in Houston. And I got to say, what I'm seeing in Texas is people that are just stunned. They're almost in disbelief. Look, there was rage. There was rage that produced this election result. But there are also a lot of Texans and a lot of Americans that were like, okay, we knew it was going to be a rough election, but holy cow, we did not anticipate this. You know, I went this afternoon into Best Buy. I wear an Oura ring, by the way. I'm going to take a digression. You want to hear, I'm rarely that persuasive, but one thing I'm pretty proud of myself for being persuasive on. Yeah. I actually convinced Heidi to let me use this aura ring and replace my wedding ring with it. Yeah. And, you know, my wedding ring was- That's pretty hard to do, by the way. So look, my wedding ring was just a simple gold band. And I wanted to have an Oura ring. And frankly, I want an Oura ring because I used to wear a Fitbit. And I like getting, like, your sleep data and your walking and all that. But I also like wearing a watch. Like, it's sort of, like, I like looking at a watch. And I don't, there was a period where I wore a Fitbit and a watch and it just looks goofy to wear two things. So I'm like, all right, I don't want to wear a Fitbit and a watch. So I want to wear a watch. And so an Oura ring, like, gives you a chance to do all the Fitbit stuff, but, like, do it on a ring. But I didn't want to wear two rings. Like, I didn't want an Oura ring and a wedding ring. You're not a big jewelry guy. I don't see you blinging like that. I think that was a good call, by the way. Yeah, look, I am actually under my shirt wearing a gigantic gold medallion like Mr. T. It actually says Cruz. It's crusted out in diamonds. I've seen it. It's like, it kind of, you wear it out when you're playing basketball, but keep going. You know, it's, I only do it when I'm dunking on you, Ben. Yes, well, that's never happened, so that means he doesn't have the gold chain. But keep going. I can dunk on a six-foot rim. An eight-foot rim is really stretching it. Like, I have done it on an eight-foot rim, but not by much. Yeah. So, anyway, my Oura Ring was not working. Like, the stupid thing is not syncing with my phone. It was really irritating because, I don't know, competitive people like you and I are. Like I go to sleep and I literally wake up and grab my phone. I'm like, how did I do? Did I sleep well? Yeah, you want to see the quality of the sleep. I'm with you. You get a good score. You're like, all right, look at that. REM deep sleep. All right, good job. And then bad night. You're like, oh, wow, that sucked. Okay, why did I not sleep well that night? And for two weeks, it hadn't synced. So I went to Best Buy. And, and cause that's where I bought the Oura ring and I'm like, okay, can you make it work? And they looked at it and they ended up it's broken. So the damn thing is broken. But fortunately I bought it a year ago. And so it's still under warranty. So, or that never works that way. Well done on that. I want to take a moment. I want to talk to you about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. What we're seeing in France should send a chill down the spine of of every American. Violence in the streets, a synagogue ransacked in Paris, Jewish families wondering whether their children will be safe, and you better understand something, America is not immune to this hatred. Anti-Semitic attacks are at record levels both in Europe and across our nation and our cities. We cannot wait until the danger gets worse to stand with our Jewish neighbors. That's why I'm asking you to support the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The fellowship is helping French Jewish families make Aliyah, the move to Israel, providing resettlement assistance and strengthening security at Jewish institutions. They've helped more than 10,000 French Jews make Aliyah since 2015. Now your generosity can help families seeking safety and support Jewish communities facing fear and uncertainty. So don't wait for the crisis to reach your neighborhood. Stand with the Jewish people today. Donate now to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Because standing against anti-Semitism isn't just about France or Israel. It's right here in the U.S. Visit their website. One word. Give. I have. GiveIFCJ.org That's GiveIFCJ.org But by the way, okay, we're taking a complete aside. So I had an Oura ring before. But as you know, I play hoops twice a week. Yeah. And my left ring finger, I keep jamming. It's like the one finger out of 10 that when I play hoops, I have jammed this like 30 times. And so my knuckles just swelled up. Because you keep jamming, it gets bigger. And so I had a ring that I could no longer get over my damn finger. And so there was like two months where I was wearing it as a pinky ring and I felt like Joe Pesci. Yeah. And I'm like, you think I'm funny? I amuse you? What about me is funny? And I got tired of wearing a pinky ring because I'm not a mobster. So I wanted a new ring. Irritatingly enough, Oura does not have a thing like if your ring no longer fits, they won't let you trade in for a bigger one. Yeah. So these things are like 500 bucks. And I'm like, okay, I'm not buying another damn ring. Yeah. The one that looks like the wedding ring that like replaces the gold one. It's there. You're right. It's like 500 bucks. Yeah. So, so I'm sitting there going, I don't want to buy a new one. I hate wearing a pinky ring. And so what I ended up doing last Christmas is I went to Catherine, my youngest daughter, and I said, how would you like an Oura ring for Christmas? She's like, oh yeah, I'd love it. So I gave her my old Oura ring, which she wears on her index finger. And it fits. You re-gifted. Hold on. But I re-gifted, but I told her. No, no, I told her, this is the one I'm wearing. But my finger, it won't fit. I want to buy a bigger one. And she's like, yeah, I would like. So I gave her my old one. She knew it was my old one. And then I was like, okay, I could buy my daughter the ring. So I bought her the ring, and I got me the bigger one and got her the little one. But anyway, the damn thing broke. And the beauty of it is, I didn't know this. I actually Googled today. How long is the warranty on an Oura ring? And the warranty is a year. Because I bought it for Christmas. You, you're under the deadline. I bought it, I think December, maybe late November, but it's early November. So I went in and I'm still under the warranty. And so I went into Best Buy to like, hey, the damn thing doesn't work. And they're actually, they're sending me a new one. So it's like under warranty, they're sending me a brand new one. I'm like, hot diggity damn, how often does that work? And I didn't buy the like extended warranty. I just like, yeah, it's the one year thing. So anyway, I went into Best Buy. I literally had three different people come up to me and they were almost like shell shocked. Oh my God, what happened to our state? I had one woman who was almost in tears. Yeah. And that's a sentiment. And as I said, I was up in Abilene at Dyess Air Force Base and there are people that are just like, what happened? Yeah. And I get the shock. People are just like, they don't understand. More than anything, I want to give comfort to our listeners. It is always darkest before the dawn. That's how I closed the podcast on Wednesday. Yeah. It's dark right now. It's depressing right now. Like, it sucks. I am the only Republican statewide elected official in Texas. That is not, I liked it when we were all Republicans. Yeah. I wanted to be the most conservative, the strongest Republican, but I had a lot of friends and colleagues, and we were all fighting together for our state. Like, that's how I liked it. I believe, listen, Texas is not lost. Our values are the same. Who we are are the same. And remember, look, politics is pendulums. So you can be like, oh, dear God, the country's lost. We're all going to die. The Democrats will overshoot. We will bring Texas back. I give you my word. Texas will be red again. And I will. I'm pouring every breath, every strength in my body into making that happen. And Texas and the country will be red again. We are going to prevail again. We are not going to socialism. And you know why? because of the men and women who listen to Verdict, because of the common sense conservative values. So be depressed, be pissed, be angry. Great. But then resolve yourself to go to work because let me be very serious. We have a country to save. Amen. Amen to that. We'll keep doing the show. We'll see on the podcast this week. Download it wherever you get your podcasts and all you guys in the radio. Thanks for joining us as well. Don't forget, it's Verdict with Ted Cruz, and we'll see you back here on this radio station next week.