Ted Cruz turning to new source for cash after corporate donors turn their backs on him

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is investing heavily in Facebook to cultivate a network of small-dollar donors as corporate America turns its back on the high-profile senator.

The Texas Republican known for social media stunts is relying heavily on Facebook ads to rebrand himself as an outsider and build the sort of digital network that could not only help raise campaign cash for his Senate re-election campaign, but also serve as a fundraising apparatus for a potential presidential race, reported Politico.

"I'm done with these woke corporations," says a Cruz ad posted on Facebook last week. "I'm never taking their money again. I won't owe them a single thing and I'm going to spend every day stopping their radical agenda. But if I'm going to win, if I'm going to beat them, then I need patriots like you to step up and make a donation today!"

Cruz has poured $240,000 into Facebook advertising since the platform started allowing political ads again following the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection, and only Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who paid $335,000, has spent more with the social media giant.

"When tens of thousands of grassroots supporters are responding across the country to your message, you continue to increase spending to reach even more potential supporters," a Cruz adviser told Politico.

Corporate PACs have cooled their relationship with Cruz since he voted against certifying Joe Biden's win during the Jan. 6 insurrection, with just one donation from one of those groups in the first quarter of this year, but a spokesman for Lyondell Chemical Company PAC said that donation was actually made in September.

"In my nine years in the Senate, I've received $2.6 million in contributions from corporate political-action committees," Cruz wrote last month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. "Starting today, I no longer accept money from any corporate PAC. I urge my GOP colleagues at all levels to do the same."