There is no question that Donald Trump is losing it. When he isn’t swaying in dazed confusion at campaign events that seem more like failed attempts at performance art than traditional political rallies, the former president is claiming that the jobs of American autoworkers could be done by children. Trump has, somehow, become even more of an embarrassment for the Republican Party than he already was.

But there is a case to be made that he is still less of an embarrassment than the man he beat for the party’s presidential nomination eight years ago: Ted Cruz.

Trump established himself in American politics by crushing Cruz, the absurdly self-righteous senator from Texas who became the billionaire’s favorite target in the 2016 GOP primary season.

Trump gleefully painted Cruz as a hypocrite and a liar. The New Yorker portrayed the Texan—who was born in Canada—as somehow foreign. And always dishonest.

“How can Ted Cruz be an evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?” asked Trump, who labeled his rival “Lyin’ Ted.” His disdain for Cruz ran so deep that, after the senator had gone down to humiliating defeat in the last contested primaries of 2016, Trump said, “He’ll come and endorse over the next little while—because he has no choice. But I don’t want his endorsement. What difference does it make? I don’t want his endorsement. Ted, stay home, relax, enjoy yourself.”

Trump was right. Cruz decided he had no choice, and endorsed his rival. But he didn’t stop there. Like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and other once-fierce Republican critics of the man their party has now nominated for the presidency three times, Cruz tossed aside his personal dignity and became the most ardent—if obviously hypocritical—of Trump defenders.

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December 2024 Issue

That was evident when Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and Senator Cruz—a Harvard-educated attorney who clerked for US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and served as a top Justice Department lawyer in the administration of President George W. Bush—became one of the Senate’s loudest champions of Trump’s crazed attempts to reject the will of the people and the US Constitution. Cruz’s complete about-face on Trump and Trumpism is just one example of his open disregard for the truth. It’s only because he represents Texas, a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, that Cruz has remained politically viable after exposing himself as the most outrageously sanctimonious member of a legislative chamber where there is no shortage of pomposity.

But that viability may be fading. Cruz is running for a third term, and he faces a dramatically tighter reelection race than he or the Democrats expected at the beginning of this year’s campaign. Indeed, in the intense race for control of the US Senate, the Texas contest between Cruz and Democratic US Representative Colin Allred could well decide whether the Democratic caucus retains a majority in the chamber.

Cruz’s reckless behavior—including a supremely embarrassing departure to a luxury resort in Cancún when the Texas power grid went down in 2021—has turned what should have been a cakewalk into an increasingly imperiled campaign. Texas polls, which once gave him a comfortable lead, now show him to be barely ahead of Allred, a fourth-generation Texan who has raised almost $70 million, built a powerful grassroots network of supporters, won major newspaper endorsements from across the state, and put the incumbent on the defensive. Since September, surveys have consistently put Allred within three or four points of Cruz. While Trump is running well ahead of Democrat Kamala Harris in recent Texas polls, Allred has been attracting just enough support from independents and self-respecting Republicans to close the gap.

And the Democrat, undoubtedly, closed it a bit more on Monday night, when he faced the Republican in a high-stakes debate.

To suggest that Allred shredded Cruz would be an understatement.

When the subject of the incumbent’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election came up, Allred took no prisoners.

“You can’t be for the mob on January 6, and for the [police] officers, you can’t. You can’t,” the Democrat said to the Republican’s face. Cruz tried to laugh off Allred’s statement of fact. But the Democrat shut him down. “And it’s not funny, because you’re a threat to democracy.”

“I was on the House floor when we went through the votes. I remember when you objected to the results in Arizona,” said Allred, as he described what he saw when the Capitol was overrun by Trump backers. “I know where I was, and I know where he was.… I took off my suit jacket and I was prepared to defend the House floor from the mob. At the same time, after he’d gone around the country lying about the election, after he’d been the architect of the attempt to overthrow that election, when that mob came, Senator Cruz was hiding in a supply closet.”

“That’s OK. I don’t want him to be hurt by the mob. I really don’t,” continued Allred, before he delivered the winning lines of the debate. “This election is [about] accountability. You cannot just be patriotic when your side wins. If for the first time in 250 years [of] this project of ours, this shared American project, that we did not have a peaceful transfer of power, the folks responsible have to be held accountable. That’s why [former Republican US representative] Liz Cheney has endorsed me, has gotten involved in this campaign and is saying to Texans everywhere: Do not put Ted Cruz back in a position of authority, because he’s done it once, he’ll do it again.”

That was the most devastating line of a night that saw Allred deliver rhetorical blow after rhetorical blow, on issues ranging from abortion rights to immigration to Cruz’s Cancún trip.

Allred closed the debate with an equally blistering takedown that might well be enough to close the gap in the race that could decide control of the US Senate.

“We’re all Americans, and we’re all Texans. We need a leader who will bring us together around our shared values. That’s what I’m trying to do during my six years in Congress. That’s the exact opposite of what Senator Cruz has done. Whatever he says tonight, you’ve seen it—for 12 years. He’s been one of the most divisive senators in the entire country. If you don’t like how things are going in Washington right now, well, you know what, he is singularly responsible for it,” Allred declared, as Cruz shuffled nervously at his side on the stage. “He has introduced this new kind of ‘angertaiment’ where you just get people upset and then you podcast about it, and you write a book about it, and you make some money on it. But you’re not actually there when people need you—like when the lights went out. When 30 million Texans were relying on a senator to spring into action, he went to Cancún. That’s who he is. If you give me the chance to be your United States senator, I’ll never abandon you.”