Sen. Ted Cruz is already looking ahead to the 2024 presidential race and he says he hopes to run for president again.
"Look, I hope to run again," the Texas Republican told The Christian Science Monitor after a breakfast session with reporters this week. "We came very, very close in 2016, and it's the most fun I've ever had in my life."
In the 2016 election, Cruz came in second for the GOP nomination, losing from among 17 candidates only to eventual President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. Trump won't be eligible for a third term if he wins reelection in the 2020 race, but if a Democrat wins, Republicans are expected to start lining up immediately.
“The great thing is, every issue I was fighting for in the presidential campaign is front and center in the Senate," Cruz said.
Cruz was a Tea Party Republican when he first won for the Senate in 2012, and he won his reelection bid in 2018 with a narrow victory over now-Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke.
His victory caused some Republicans to fear that the state, a longtime GOP stronghold, could become a battleground both in the presidential race and in Sen. John Cornyn's bid for a fourth term, notes Politico.
Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans must push for voter turnout, Cruz told The Christian Science Monitor, as far-left Democrats are "pissed off."
"They hate the president and that is a powerful motivator,” he said. “If the left shows up in massive numbers and everybody else doesn’t, that’s how we end up with an incredibly damaging election.”
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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