Less than a week after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was candid about the GOP's troubles courting Latino voters.
In an interview with The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, Cruz opened up about concerns in some of the nation's largest states, headed by Texas.
“If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community, in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state," he said.
Cruz added that losing a state like Texas, which carried 38 electoral votes in 2012, would hold national implications.
“If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House," he said. "New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won’t be talking about Ohio, we won’t be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won’t matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party."
Cruz' words paralleled those of Mitt Romney adviser Carlos Gutierrez, who said on Sunday that Latinos were "scared of the Republican party." The former Commerce Secretary attributed that fear to the presidential primary process, which he said forces candidates "to say outrageous things."
President Barack Obama was reelected last Tuesday with the help of near-record levels of Latino support. Various polls found the incumbent Democrat securing more than 70 percent of that voting bloc.
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