If Senator Cruz chooses to run for a 3rd term in 2024, what aspects of his 2018 campaign will he need to strengthen to widen a margin between a strong Democratic challenger?

Answer 1

I doubt he will face a strong Democratic challenger in 2024. There is a shortage of Deomcrats who can win a state wide election in Texas. Gov. Richards or Lt Gov. Bullock might be the most recent Democrat to win statewide. Cruz is more lkikey to face a strong challenger in teh R primary, because he is an asshole and most people dislike him (outside Texas). It is odd that he emerged as the #2 R candidate for President in 2016, but perhaps he got a lot of anti-Trump votes in the primaries. A possible scenario is that he will spent a lot of energy warding off the R primary challenger and then be wounded and face a weak D in the Fall election and have to struggle to win. That would make his opponent look strong, but it may be an illusion.

Update 17 Oct 2024: Cruz is in a tough re-election bid against a House member and former NFL player. Cruz did not have an important primary challenger so he easily collected money for Fall, while the Dem primary was a fight between Allred and Tx state Senator Roland Gutierrez. Allred won 58-16 to be the Dem nominee, with almost 600,000 votes. Cruz vanquished three small potato rivals with 1.6 million votes and 83% of the R vote. Current pllls show Cruz ahead by 1-6 points in a very R state. It looks like he will win in Nov. what Cruz mostly did was raise money and avoid fleeing to Mexico again every time there was bad weather. He mostly campaigns to the base not to undecided voters. If he wins 90% of the R vote he will be re-elected in a walk. Allred had to get all Dem and all Independent voters to have a chance.