Sen. Ted Cruz released his first TV ad Friday, but also got some bad news from an influential political source.
His ad, "Harvey," touts the incumbent Republican's efforts, both on the ground in-state and back in Washington, DC, to deal with the cleanup efforts after Hurricane Harvey swept through the state last year. (Watch the ad, below)
A news release on the senator's campaign site says, in part:
"When Hurricane Harvey came ashore last August, Senator Cruz was on the scene to be with storm victims. After the waters receded, Senator Cruz got to work helping his neighbors recover and rebuild.
In Texas, Senator Cruz dedicated his staff to ensure recovery efforts were occurring in the fastest manner possible. This included visiting the affected communities multiple times, distributing supplies and later helping cut government red tape. In Washington, Senator Cruz led the effort in the Senate to pass major disaster relief bills providing billions in needed relief to Texans impacted by Harvey. These measures were critical in the recovery efforts for Texas."But just as fortune was blessing Cruz with the goodwill that surely will come with this ad, it was taking part of that away with a bit of unwelcome news.
The influential Cook Political Report is moving the US Senate race from "Safe Republican" status to "LEAN Republican." That's jaw-dropping in a state that hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 1994. But polling has shown Cruz 11 points ahead of Beto O'Rourke, his Democratic opponent (Quinnipiac’s May 23-29 survey) to within two points in the Texas Lyceum poll (July 9-26 of 441 likely voters.)
"Suffice it to say," write's the Cook Political Report's Jennifer E. Duffy, "that O’Rourke has made incredible progress in a pretty red state, at least when it comes to running for statewide office. The race moves to Lean Republican. Whether it ever gets to Toss Up remains to be seen."
Few political observers, and few Republicans, are predicting an O'Rourke win at this point. But many GOP officials in the state are probably not at all OVER confident at this point.
It's important to note that before it was released, Cruz's pollster Chris Wilson published an article on Medium calling out the Lyceum's alleged past bias and oversampling errors.
"Dating back to 2008 the Texas Lyceum has generously given Democrats a massive house effect boost of seven (7!!!) points," he wrote, "The Texas Lyceum drastically overestimates the share of Hispanic voters in the Lone Star state. This of course has the impact of decreasing the white vote share under 50%."
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