A recent poll of likely voters in Texas conducted by Data for Progress shows most Texans want Sen. Ted Cruz to step down.
According to the poll, 51 percent of Texans think Cruz should resign and 49 percent don’t.
Opinion is split mostly on party lines with 88 percent of Democrats believing the junior senator should resign, 79 percent of Republicans believing he shouldn’t, and 52 percent of independents believing he should step down. The survey reached 752 likely voters and has a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.
The poll comes after weeks of mounting pressure from newspapers, Democrats, and protesters calling for Cruz’s resignation for his part in helping inspire the Capitol attack.
In the weeks leading up to the attack, Cruz refused to recognize Biden’s victory and supported Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s frivolous lawsuit to overturn the results, even offering to argue the case in front of the Supreme Court. Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley then cajoled several Senators into voting against the electoral college certification shortly before the Capitol was stormed.
Calls for Cruz’s resignation reached a fever pitch on Wednesday evening after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared her experience the day of the Capitol attack, telling followers on Instagram she believed she was going to die as rioters stormed the building.
In the live stream that was shared widely, Ocasio-Cortez compared Cruz’s attempts to deny responsibility, or Rep. Chip Roy’s letter asking her to apologize to Cruz after she told Cruz he nearly got her killed, to that of tactics of abusers.
“We cannot move on without accountability,” she said. “We cannot heal without accountability. These folks who tell us to move on, that it’s not a big deal, or have been telling us to apologize, these are the same tactics of abusers. I’m a survivor of sexual assault. And I haven’t told many people that in my life but when we go through trauma, that trauma compounds on each other.”
Ocasio-Cortez said that if members and the president aren’t held accountable for the riot, a similar attack will happen again.
“That tells me that these people remain a present danger because what that tells me is that then given another window of political opportunism for themselves, even if they know it means it will endanger their colleagues, they will do it again,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “That’s the real reason I think Hawley and Cruz should resign, along with many others, because they will do it again.”
Cruz has repeatedly said he will not resign.
On Monday, signaling his vote for the Senate impeachment trial that begins next week, Cruz said the trial was an “vindictive impeachment” and a way for Democrats to advance their agenda.
Photo: US Customs and Border Protection/Wikimedia Commons
Fernando covers Texas politics and government at the Texas Signal. Before joining the Signal, Fernando spent two years at the Houston Chronicle and previously interned at Houston’s NPR station News 88.7. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, and enjoys reading, highlighting things, and arguing on social media. You can follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93 or email at fernando@texassignalarchive.com
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