There are a ton of legendary mistakes, gaffes and big misses in politics. And Texas Democrats clearly think a particular one can help them come November: that time Ted Cruz went to Cancún during a deadly winter storm that left millions across the state without power.
Rep. Colin Allred’s campaign has plastered Texas with ads about the controversy, deploying the message in most of the major media markets across the state.
“When Texans were freezing in the dark, he jetted off to Cancún,” Allred, who is challenging Cruz, says in one of these ads. “We don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator. We can get a new one.”
“What’s Ted Cruz fought for? Himself,” he says in another. “This is the guy who fled to Cancún while Texans were stuck at home freezing.”
Cruz was photographed boarding a plane to Cancún in 2021, which was subsequently shared in a viral tweet. Cruz was again photographed at the Cancún airport on his way back to Texas — an arguably iconic image of him wearing a Texas flag mask.
Every source NOTUS spoke with — on both sides of the aisle — could recall the exact image and the ensuing saga. There were the airport pictures, then a journalist happened to catch Cruz’s family poodle, Snowflake, alone in the house and, finally, Cruz blamed his family for the trip, an excuse that only prompted more backlash.
Some Republicans supporting Allred cite the episode as one part of the reason why they’re opting to vote for a Democrat this cycle. Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said the Cancún incident is a powerful example of Allred’s case against Cruz.
“You look back to the past, and I see one thing after another where Cruz has basically not shown me the character that I want to see in my U.S. senator,” he said. “He just left the state when it was in a time of need. He left the Alamo.”
Tarrant County, which encompasses Fort Worth, is expected to be an important swing district in the statewide elections.
In a recent focus group of Texas Republicans, “Cancún Cruz” came up unprompted, The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell, who conducted the panel, said on her podcast. “The Cancún debacle is when I started to become a little more undecided,” one voter from the focus group said.
Of course, Cruz’s allies disagree that the Cancún trip will matter on Election Day — even if they admit it certainly doesn’t help.
“Cruz probably doesn’t have the best image in the state of Texas as for political leaders. This is definitely something that’s not going to help improve that image,” one Republican consultant who has worked on statewide races said, requesting anonymity to speak frankly about Cruz. “He’s such a well-known quantity that I don’t necessarily know how much more you can drive down, like how much that image is already just cemented.”
The consultant called the episode an “unforced error.” David Luther, the president of Texas Republican County Chairmen’s Association, on the other hand, seemed to blame outside forces for making bad press.
“Obviously, [it] was a political negative because it was made into a political negative, which basically you can take anything that anyone does if you don’t like them in a political campaign and try to turn it into a negative,” Luther said. “I think the reality of this is that, as in all politics, the people who are going to vote for Ted Cruz are going to vote for Ted Cruz, and this is not going to make any difference to them.”
Cruz’s campaign declined to comment.
Even though members of the focus group remembered the Cancún situation, most of them said they would still vote for Cruz.
Allred is running a competitive, but long-shot, race against Cruz in the state, polling within 2 and 5 percentage points of the incumbent senator in October surveys. As NOTUS previously reported, his campaign’s strategy hinges on winning over independents and some Republicans. His campaign has focused on bipartisanship, the border and abortion.
And while pretty much everyone agreed that a Cancún trip mid-storm was a bad look for Cruz, few think the race will hinge on it.
Todd Smith, a former Republican statehouse representative for Tarrant County, defended Cruz’s decision to go to Cancún, saying that there’s not much a federal politician can do.
“It’s not really going to affect much if he hands out blankets on the street corner when everybody’s freezing in Texas,” he said. “It’s a better use of his time to be calling somebody of importance to move big moving vans of equipment various places where they are needed while he’s in his living room, or in Cancún.”
Smith is voting for Allred. But for a different reason.
“It doesn’t really move me,” Smith said of Cruz’s Cancún mistake. “I care about election deniers. That, to me, matters. Whether or not someone used poor judgment in getting on an airplane on a particular day, the nation’s not going to stand or fall on that.”
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.