Outcome of Cruz Reelection Bid Could Impact Senate Commerce's 2025 Trajectory
The outcome of Tuesday's Senate elections could scramble Senate Commerce Committee Republicans’ leadership structure given the competitive contest between ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Colin Allred, his Democratic challenger. Four other panel members also face tough or competitive reelection fights (see 2411040051). Democratic leaders on the House and Senate Commerce committees indicated they intend to stay in those roles in the upcoming 119th Congress regardless of the election’s outcome.
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Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell of Washington and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, both Democrats, separately confirmed to us they want to remain party leaders in those posts regardless of whether Republicans win control of the upper chamber. Cantwell told us “the plan” is for her to stay on as top Senate Commerce Democrat no matter the election's results. Election prognosticators rate Cantwell as certain to win reelection over Republican Raul Garcia, a physician. She has led Garcia by 15-23 percentage points in a handful of polls conducted since the beginning of September.
“I’d be honored to continue” as either Senate Communications chairman or ranking member, Lujan told us. He cited work the subcommittee needs to do on broadband funding and “supporting local media.” House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui of California separately confirmed she also intends to remain the subpanel’s lead Democrat into the next Congress.
The outcome of Cruz’s reelection bid against Allred has the most potential to alter the Senate Commerce dynamic because he’s poised to become panel chairman if he survives and Republicans gain a majority in the upper chamber, lobbyists and other observers told us. They noted other viable Republicans could step in to replace Cruz if he loses, the most high-profile being Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota. Thune, a former Commerce chairman, could fill the vacancy for one term under GOP conference rules if he doesn’t win his bid to be the party’s Senate leader, lobbyists said.
Joshua Blank, University of Texas-Austin Texas Politics Project research director, told us Cruz could see his vote tally against Allred end up as tight as his close 2018 victory because Texas elections “have been becoming more competitive over the last two decades, and in particular during the era of [former President] Donald Trump,” the Republicans’ White House nominee. Cruz has led all polls since the beginning of October, apart from an Oct. 18-23 GBAO Strategies poll, paid for by the Allred campaign, which showed the candidates deadlocked at 46% each. ABC’s FiveThirtyEight found Cruz’s average lead over Allred in polls at about 3 percentage points. An Oct. 18-21 Emerson College poll showed Cruz leading 48%-47%.
'Ready to Roll'
Cruz's role as lead Senate Commerce Republican hasn't been a major focus in the campaign, Blank said. Seniority and chamber leadership are “much more a set piece for” Texas’ other senator, former GOP Whip John Cornyn. “Cruz is part of the insurgent wing of the party, and as a leader in the conservative movement in the Senate he's less reliant on his power in the government than he is on his impact politically and culturally,” Blank said: The tech and telecom issues Cruz focuses on in the committee “are much less salient” on the campaign trail “even though they're growing in importance.”
Digital First Project Executive Director Nathan Leamer said Cruz’s two-year stint as Senate Commerce ranking member shows how he wants to proceed if he takes the gavel come January. He also has a “really solid team” of GOP aides “ready to roll” on a range of tech and telecom issues, including spectrum legislation (see 2410290039), said Leamer, who served as an aide to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Cruz is “certainly very vocal” about outlining an alternative approach to Cantwell’s Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) via his 2024 Spectrum Pipeline Act (S-3909).
Cruz would likely prioritize a push to rein in NTIA’s implementation of the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program (see 2410210043) given the emphasis he’s placed on “weeding out waste, fraud and abuse” in federal broadband programs, Leamer said. He’s also interested in Cruz’s advocacy for making the Universal Service Fund subject to the federal appropriations process even though it differs from advocacy of “some other people who want to broaden” the funding pool to include edge providers like Google-owned YouTube and Netflix (see 2303160080).
Brookings Institution senior fellow Blair Levin cautioned that a Cruz win in conjunction with a GOP Senate takeover won’t be “the same as saying that Cruz’s two most significant legislative [telecom] priorities have an easy path.” Cruz “has not demonstrated any ability to be a legislative leader” and neither his S-3909 nor S-4207 “is likely to succeed” as currently written given DOD “effectively has a veto” on spectrum legislative that affects bands it controls, Levin told us. Cruz’s proposal for directly appropriating USF money (see 2403060090), meanwhile, will depend on the outcome of ongoing legal challenges to the program and whether Trump wins.