Cruz calls out McConnell-aligned group for not spending ‘a penny’ in Texas

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) vented his frustration with the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), for not spending any money in his competitive reelection race, accusing McConnell of using the group to “punish” his critics in the Senate GOP conference.

“Mitch McConnell runs the largest Republican super PAC in the country and has $400 million but that super PAC is used to reward the Republican senators who obey him and to punish those who dare to stand up him,” Cruz told conservative talk show host Mark Levin during a recent interview.

Asked if McConnell or the PAC had put any money into his increasingly close race against Democratic Rep. Colin Allred (Texas), Cruz replied: “Not a penny.”

The prominent Texas conservative said the same thing happened in 2018, when he barely beat Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), who outspent him by a large margin.

“In 2018 I was in what was at the time the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history. I was being outspent 3-to-1. He had $300 million, he spent zero in Texas. I won anyway but barely, by less than 3 points,” Cruz said, referring to McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund.

“This time around he has $400 million. I’m being massively outspent again. [Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)] is spending millions. And yet he spent zero,” he added, referring to McConnell.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) announced last month it would launch a multimillion-dollar television advertising campaign targeting Cruz.

Cruz has famously battled with McConnell over the years, most recently over the bipartisan border security deal that McConnell helped negotiate. He says the Senate Leadership Fund is leaving him high and dry because of his personal clashes with the GOP leader.

“People wonder at home, ‘How come no Republicans stand up and have courage and stand up to Mitch and leadership?’ And the answer is if you stand up and say ‘no,’ it costs you $10 or $20 or $30 [million], or even $40 million,” Cruz told Levin, the host of “Life, Liberty and Levin” on Fox News.

McConnell is prohibited by campaign finance law from directing the spending decisions of the Senate Leadership Fund, but he has raised more than $1 billion for the group since it started, and Republican senators believe he has a lot of indirect influence over what races it chooses to support.

Steven Law, McConnell’s former chief of staff, is the CEO of the Senate Leadership Fund.

McConnell told The Hill in February that he doesn’t play favorites when it comes to making decisions about which candidates to support in an election year. He says his political decisions are entirely driven by what he thinks will best help Republicans control a Senate majority.

But Cruz says McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund didn’t help two other conservative critics of McConnell’s leadership style, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), in 2016 and 2022, respectively.

He said that Johnson “had a very tough, competitive race” in 2016, and “Mitch spent zero to support him.”

And he argued that Lee faced an unexpectedly tough challenge from independent Evan McMullin but didn’t get any support from the McConnell-aligned super PAC.

Johnson won his 2016 race against former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) by 3 points, and Lee won his 2022 reelection contest by more than 10 points.

SLF actually spent $2 million on Johnson’s 2016 race and $26 million on his 2022 re-election bid, which he also won, according to a person familiar with the group’s spending record. 

Law told The Wall Street Journal that the Senate Leadership Fund felt confident Cruz and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), another McConnell critic who faces a tough reelection race this fall, would ultimately prevail.

“I think we’ll be OK in both of them,” he said of the Texas and Florida Senate races. “This is a presidential cycle. Neither one of those states is going to be on the radar of the Democrats.”

He made his comment before the DSCC announced its advertising buys in Texas and Florida. The Senate Democratic campaign arm, however, is not expected to spend more than a few million dollars in each state, although it hasn’t disclosed its plans in detail.