Panicked Ted Cruz admits 'uphill battle' in Texas: 'We have to take this threat seriously'

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has a dire warning for Republican donors: his state could be slipping away to Democrats.

“I can’t believe I’m actually writing you this, but the time has come,” reads a fundraising email sent over the weekend under Cruz’s name. “It’s going to shock you to your core, but I genuinely believe you need to hear it all the same.”

The email, paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, links to a donation page with what it calls a “private letter” from Cruz about the Senate race between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.

“Every election cycle, the Democrats talk up their chances of flipping Texas and raise a bunch of money, only to end up falling short,” the letter reads. “But this time, it’s different – truly.”

The letter casts Paxton as “fighting to SAVE our Senate Majority” and admits Republicans are “fighting an uphill battle because we lack the funds to effectively counter the Democrats’ lies and attacks on the airwaves.”

“We have to take this threat seriously, or Texas could very well go BLUE for the first time this century!” it reads.

The letter also looks back at Cruz’s narrow 2018 win over Democrat Beto O’Rourke. It claims “we were still the clear leader in ALL of the polls” that year, which suggests Paxton isn’t.

A pre-checked box on the donation page, which signs donors up for a $100 monthly contribution, carries its own grim message: “Republicans are DOWN BY 8% in midterm polling. Without your support, we will LOSE BIG!”

Recent public polling has shown the Paxton-Talarico race to be a dead heat, with at least one survey giving Talarico a narrow lead.

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.