Some think that Ted Cruz is more afraid of competitor Beto O’Rourke than he claims to be, because Texas residents say he has started sending sketchy donation request mailers to his constituents. The document says it’s from the court, and that there is a summons enclosed. But instead of a court summons, the envelope contains a request for money from the Cruz campaign.
The Week is reporting that the correspondence has a return address which says it’s an “Official Travis County Summons” and then on the third line it says it’s from Ted Cruz for Senate 2018. Austin resident Sean Owen said that his 88-year-old grandmother received one of these requests for a donation and he was angered.
“Received this for my 88-year-old grandma. Says it’s a summons from Travis County, but is actually asking for money for @tedcruz. Did your campaign authorize this? Is this even legal? Shame on you. That’s one more @BetoORourke voter.”
When asked, The Ted Cruz campaign admitted that they mailed out hundreds of thousands of these “summons” to registered voters, and only a few people have complained or were confused by what was actually in the mailer.
Owen said he is used to junk mail, but it doesn’t usually say it’s from the court or from the government.
“Cruz’s mailer fooled even me for a moment, as it plainly wants us to think it’s from our county government when it isn’t…. It made me mad because my grandmother suffered from some dementia, and could easily have followed the urgent request inside to send money.”
This is not the first time that Ted Cruz has used some “questionable methods” in his mailers, but when asked about it in the past for the 2016 Republican Presidential primary, Cruz said he “will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote.”
Newsweek said that Republican political consultant Craig Murphy told Politifact that if people don’t like it, they won’t give.
“These (appeals) are self-healing. If people don’t like it, they don’t give. It’s the most normal thing in politics. It’s the attention-getter.”
Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke are neck in neck in the race and nearly tied for fundraising even though O’Rourke is refusing to accept PAC money.
“We’ve got a race on our hands. If you’re a wealthy liberal sitting in New York City or Massachusetts or San Francisco right now and you could defeat one Republican in the country, it’d be me, that’s why the money is flowing in here.”
