Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney called Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz “dangerous” for choosing to follow “whatever” former President Donald Trump wanted after the 2020 presidential election.
Cheney has become increasingly vocal about her disdain for Cruz ahead of November’s election, where Democratic Congressman Colin Allred is running to unseat Cruz. The former Wyoming lawmaker has also joined dozens of other Republicans, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, in backing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election against Trump.
Speaking with ABC News affiliate WFAA Tuesday, Cheney addressed her decision to endorse Allred over Cruz, a close Trump ally, telling the interviewer that in her mind, “the most conservative value of all is being faithful to the Constitution and doing your duty to uphold the Constitution.”
“And you know, when I watched the kinds of things that we saw Ted Cruz do after the 2020 election, in particular, his willingness to do whatever Donald Trump wanted him to do … that’s just, it’s just dangerous,” Cheney continued, referring to Cruz’s efforts to push Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from the former president.
“These jobs really matter, and in this race, I want to do everything I can to help ensure that the people of Texas elect Collin Allred,” Cheney added.
As the lead voice of a Republican senatorial contingent, Cruz said before Congress was set to certify the 2020 election results that he planned to reject electors in certain states where voter fraud claims were being floated. Cruz stood by his decision on January 6, 2021, and objected to certifying the electoral votes of Arizona before a mob of Trump supporters violently breached the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to halt the proceedings.
Cheney served on the special House committee tasked with investigating the January 6 attack, which ultimately recommended that the Department of Justice launch an investigation into Trump’s activities surrounding the riot.
In an interview with CNN‘s Kaitlan Collins in May, Cruz would not say whether he would unconditionally accept the results of the 2024 election, calling it a “ridiculous question.”
“Like, we have an entire election law system: that people challenge elections, elections get overturned, voter fraud gets proven,” Cruz said. “That happens all the time.”
After he was further pushed by Collins, Cruz said that “if the Democrats win” in November, “I will accept the result, but I’m not going to ignore fraud regardless of what happens.”
Newsweek reached out to Cruz’s office for comment Tuesday night.
Polling has shown that Cruz holds the overall lead against Allred, although a recent survey from Texas Public Opinion Research showed that the race is tightening. Out of a survey of 800 voters, Allred trailed Cruz by 4 percentage points (47 percent to 43 percent). The margin of error of the poll, however, was 3.5 percent, meaning that the candidates could very well be nearly deadlocked.
RealClearPolling finds that as of September 5, Cruz is leading in the polls by 6 percentage points on average.