![Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz speaks to a crowd of 9000+ at the Pro-Family Rally held on 8/29/15 at the South Carolina Statehouse [Shutterstock/Crush Rush]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/STC-1-e1540920260378.jpg "Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz speaks to a crowd of 9000+ at the Pro-Family Rally held on 8/29/15 at the South Carolina Statehouse [Shutterstock/Crush Rush]")
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz invited Democrats who feel like their viewpoints no longer align with the Democratic Party to join the conservative movement.
“People come up to me [after rallies] — they say ‘Ted, I’m a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat my whole life and I’m with you,'” Cruz told a crowd of supporters Monday while campaigning in Mission, Texas.
STAFFORD, TX – APRIL 2: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) shakes hands with supporters during a rally to launch his re-election campaign at the Redneck Country Club on April 2, 2018 in Stafford, Texas. Cruz is defending his bid for a second term as Texas’s junior senator against Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke. (Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)
“There are millions of conservative Democrats and moderate Democrats in Texas that are seeing the national Democratic Party get more and more extreme, more and more radical,” Cruz continued. “They’re seeing the national Democrats go bat-crap crazy — that, by the way, is the Texas medical diagnosis. It’s under ‘B’ in the medical dictionary.” (RELATED: Ted Cruz Pushes Back Against Accusations That Border Security Equates To Anti-Immigrant)
Cruz’s statement was backed up by a decade-long study by Pew Research Center showing that the political polarization in America has been primarily due to the Democratic Party’s ideology moving sharply to the left, while the Republican Party’s ideology has remained relatively stagnant. Moreover, the study concludes that the divide reached “record levels during Barack Obama’s presidency, [but] In Donald Trump’s first year as president, these gaps have grown even larger.”
“When conservative Democrats see national Democrats like Beto O’Rourke call for impeaching the president, or talk about abolishing ICE, those conservative Democrats say ‘there’s no longer a home for me in that national party,” the Texas senator told the crowd. “Well, let me speak to every conservative Democrat here and at home, let me speak to every moderate Democrat, to every independent, to every libertarian — come join us, we welcome you with open arms.”
WATCH:
After he asked the crowd for a show of hands to see who is currently a Democrat or used to be a Democrat, a slew of onlookers raised their hands and the crowd began clapping and cheering.
“If you believe in low taxes and low regulations and lots of jobs,” Cruz said. “If you believe in defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights, then come join a common sense super majority across the state of Texas.”
Send tips to molly@dailycallernewsfoundation.org
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.