By: Nihal Krishan – washingtonexaminer.com – January 16, 2020

Ted Cruz predicted high Democratic turnout in Texas in the 2020 election, clouding President Trump’s prospects.

The Texas senator also said, though, that impeachment would boost Trump.

“What Democrats managed to do in 2018, they more than doubled Democratic turnout in Texas. They took it from 1.8 million all the way up to 4 million. That is a massive increase in turnout,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner, referring to his highly competitive reelection bid against Beto O’Rourke.

“I think that 2018 race is foreshadowing for 2020. I think you’re going to see a massive Democratic turnout in 2020. That everyone on the far left that hates Trump, they’re going to show up,” Cruz said.

In 2020 general election polls in Texas, Trump leads all the major Democratic presidential candidates. But he’s only ahead of Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democrat in the polls, by half a point.

A few months ago, Cruz said he felt that Trump’s reelection was “a coin flip.” But in the last three months, he said, the odds of Trump getting reelected have risen “dramatically” because Trump’s impeachment has gone badly for the Democrats.

“Impeachment politically proved to be a very good thing for Bill Clinton,” Cruz said. “It helped him get a second term.”

Although Clinton first had sexual contact with Monica Lewinsky in 1995, his impeachment, for lying under oath and obstructing justice, didn’t begin until 1998, well after his reelection.

Still, his approval rating peaked at 73% in late 1998 as House Republicans moved to impeach him. The House GOP was “out of touch and not focused as much as they should have been on jobs and economic growth and the priorities of the American people,” Cruz said.

He said Democrats are making “the exact same mistake” now in focusing on impeaching President Trump.

Cruz said that, in order to keep the White House and the Senate controlled by Republicans, the party has to have high turnout among “commonsense conservatives.”

If such voters “stay home,” he said, “that’s how you end up with a disastrous election.”

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Source: Texas in play? Ted Cruz predicts ‘massive Democratic turnout’ in 2020