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Archive photo · 12 May 2026Ted Cruz Says Tariffs Made Everything Too Expensive After Texas Blue Shift
2 Local Western2 Western Mainstream1 Latin American2 Other source typesPhoto: NASA Headquarters / NASA/Aubrey Gemignani / US federal government, Public domain · Cropped for layout
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Cruz labeled election results a Republican beatdown and noted shrinking Hispanic support in Texas. Republicans suffered a Texas statewide defeat and broad nationwide losses in the midterms.
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7 outlets told this the same way.
Cruz blames tariffs
Ted Cruz called the Republican defeat a “raclée” and said, “2026 wasn’t just a blue wave; it was a blue tsunami. It was a beatdown,” in an analysis broadcast on social networks after Tuesday’s elections.
Cruz said, “We lost the House. We lost the Senate,” and he acknowledged that Democrats retook control of the House of Representatives and won significant victories in traditionally Republican states.
Cruz pointed to Texas, saying, “Texas is blue. It is a phrase hard to utter. But Texas, at least today, is blue,” after he said the results confirmed James Talarico’s victory over Republican Ken Paxton in the Senate race and Gina Hinojosa’s triumph over Governor Greg Abbott.
Cruz tied the political shift to economic concerns, declaring, “Food is too expensive, gas is too expensive, diesel is too expensive, insurance is too expensive, life is too expensive,” and he argued, “Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the war in Iran lasted too long.”
Rural strategy and turnout
Democratic strategist Rebecca Cooke told Reuters that rural voters felt left behind because “they hadn’t gone to meet them,” and she said, “Now, no community is too small to reach.” Reuters described a fundraising event in Warren County, in the heart of Iowa, where local party chair Jim Culbert had to order pizzas because food started running out due to the larger-than-expected crowd.
Reuters said Democratic Party officials chose to invest in every local branch rather than focus on a handful of battleground states, and it said the approach helped candidates in rural areas including Christina Bohannon’s “Small-Town Tuesdays” in Iowa. Simon Rosenberg said Democrats were “operating with a very narrow, too-narrow map,” and he described the new strategy as “essentially a rejection of how the party had operated in recent years, focusing on six or seven states.”
Texas maps and consequences
The Texas Tribune said Texas Republicans lost considerable ground in rural Texas Tuesday night, and it said roughly 90% of the counties that saw a decrease in voter turnout were rural.
“Roughly 90% of the counties that saw a decrease in voter turnout were rural.”
The Texas Tribune reported that state Rep. James Talarico closed the gap with Republican voters in rural counties by about 10 percentage points since 2018, and it said he outperformed Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 margin in exurban counties by about 15 percentage points.
The Houston Chronicle said James Talarico bested Attorney General Ken Paxton by more than 10 points in the marquee U.S. Senate race, and it said Paxton lost by over a million votes.
Wayne Hamilton, who runs Project Red Texas, said, “The people of Texas sent a strong message to the Republican Party that ‘you told us you were going to do one thing, you did something else, and we're going to punish you for it,’ and they did,” as Republicans in Texas began taking stock of what went wrong.
