CUMMING, Georgia — Sen. Ted Cruz swooped into Georgia three days before the Senate runoffs, making the case for Republican colleagues David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler’s election while taking political shots at Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell over his China spy scandal.
From the back of a pick-up truck surrounded by Perdue and Loeffler signs, the Texas senator mocked the California lawmaker for his relationship with Christine Fang, a Chinese national linked to China’s Ministry of State Security.
“For a long time, we’ve known the Democrats were in bed with China. We just didn’t realize quite how literally,” Cruz said Saturday in Cumming, Georgia.
Someone in the crowd then shouted, “Small-well!”
Swalwell’s association with Fang, which he has declined to describe in detail, lasted from 2011 to 2015, when federal agents investigating Fang alerted him to the intelligence risk. Swalwell, who was first elected to the House in 2012, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Cruz, appearing alongside only Loeffler as Perdue quarantines after being exposed to the coronavirus, had been foreshadowing what could happen if the sitting senators were unseated on Tuesday.
“The state of Georgia is poised to decide who controls the United States Senate — whether it’s Chuck Schumer or freedom-loving Americans, who are going to fight for our Constitution,” he said of the New York Senate minority leader.
Cruz added, “This is a question about whether the radicals drive the Democratic Party.”
Less than 24 hours after President Trump questioned the legitimacy of the Jan. 5 Georgia Senate runoffs, Cruz joked about voter fraud.
“We’re going to win by a big enough margin — ain’t nobody stealing the state of Georgia,” he said.
Tuesday’s runoffs between Perdue, Loeffler, and Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively, will determine which party controls the Senate. Republicans will have a 50-48 majority when newly elected senators are sworn in on Jan. 3.
