The Trial No One Is Talking About: New Jersey Senator Accused of Accepting Bribes

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has been accused of accepting $60,000 from a donor in return for political favors.

On Thursday, prosecutors built their case, saying that Salomon Melgen and his family in May 2012 gave the money to the New Jersey Democratic Party and Menendez’s legal defense fund as a bribe. The two men are on trial after being charged with “conspiracy, bribery, honest services fraud, and related charges,” Philly.com reported.

Among other things, Menendez reportedly helped Melgen obtain visas for his foreign mistresses. Melgen was convicted earlier this year on 67 charges related to health care fraud and his scheme stealing $105 million from Medicare.

Why isn’t this sordid political drama all over the news? Columnist Phil Kerpen joined radio Friday to share the details from a trial that seems to be flying under everyone’s radar.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: We want to get Phil Kerpen on because the Menendez trial, this is a senator who is still a sitting senator and is a codefendant on 22 felony counts of fraud, bribery, and related offensive -- related offenses.

Nobody is covering this.

STU: That's incredible. I mean, I -- you would think this is a gigantic story. And I feel like, is it one of those stories where, you know, the media is just doing it out of bias? Is it that they think there really is nothing to this?

GLENN: Because this is not a -- this is a senator, a Democratic senator, and he's still a member of good standing on the Senate Democratic caucus.

He -- he's going through a trial, 22 felony accounts.

STU: And they won't even say they should -- they will ask him to resign if he's convicted.

GLENN: So Phil Kerpen has been following this. And we wanted to get him on. Phil, how are you?

PHIL: I'm doing great, Glenn. It's been a while. How are you?

GLENN: I know. It's been a while. It's great to talk to you.

You're covering this. You're following it. And break it down, because I have absolutely really no idea what this is about, because nobody is covering it.

PHIL: This trial has a little bit of everything. And there is a lot of print coverage. There are probably four or five print reporters that have been in the courtroom every day. There is close to zero national TV coverage of this. In fact, media research center did a study. They found that, I think, CBS has spent 22 seconds on this trial in the first three weeks and NBC has spent zero.

GLENN: Unbelievable.

STU: Jeez.

PHIL: And it's not because this trial wouldn't be an incredible ratings boon for them. Because this trial features multiple international supermodels. It features private it's just, luxury resorts in the Caribbean, and then Paris. I mean, it's got all these stunning visuals that should be a huge ratings boom. And yet, for whatever reason, TV has completely ignored it.

But here's the basic version of the facts in this case. An eye doctor from Palm Beach, Florida, Solamon Melgen, developed a very special relationship with Senator Menendez, where he gave the senator access to his private jet whenever he wanted it, to fly wherever he wanted, and access to his luxury resort villa at Casa de Campo, one of the most luxurious resorts in the Caribbean and the Dominican Republic. He paid for his hotel rooms in Paris when he wanted to go there.

GLENN: Jeez.

PHIL: And they basically lived -- together, they lived this massive international luxury lifestyle.

And all of it, by the way, was paid for with money stolen from me and you and everyone listening to this, through Medicare fraud. The doctor who was the senator's co-defendant, has already been convicted in a separate case of stealing $105 million for Medicare in one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes in history.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PHIL: So you have this massive international luxury lifestyle, all with money stolen from us.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: And you have -- you know, Medicare. This should be -- this is -- if -- if a Republican were doing this, any Republican, this would be everywhere. Non-stop.

PHIL: Well, they would have the day the indictment came down, if not before. I mean, this guy was indicted two years ago. He's only finally going to trial now. He stayed in the Senate the entire time. And the reason why there are bribery charges here is that in exchange for this international luxury lifestyle, the senator is accused of doing three things for Dr. Melgen. Number one, he got visas for all his supermodel girlfriends. Svitlana Buchyk from the Ukraine and Juliana Lopes from Brazil and a 22-year-old model named Roseal Polanco (phonetic) from the Dominican Republic. In the case of the model from the Dominican, she had already been rejected for her visa, when Menendez stepped in and said, "Do whatever it takes." And he got the visa approved. So there were the visas for the girl.

GLENN: Phil, Phil, Phil, America cannot have enough global supermodels.

PHIL: I know. A lot of people -- a lot of people look at it, and say, he did nothing wrong on that one.

GLENN: Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. Supermodels, they can all come in. At night. In a tunnel. I don't care.

PHIL: Yeah.

GLENN: Anyway, go ahead.

PHIL: The second thing was a port security contract in the Dominican Republic. And this is kind of amazing because this guy was an eye doctor. He had no background in security of any kind. But basically, he bought a disused -- a not-honored port security contract that the Dominican Republic had signed with a company and that said, we're not going to honor that contract for whatever reason.

This guy Melgen buys the contract and then has Menendez go to bat with the State Department and with Customs and Border Control and with the Commerce Department and tries to get the entire US government to pressure the Dominican, to honor this contract, which would have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Melgen. There was testimony just yesterday from a customs and border control official, who said that Senator Menendez called her and said, do not allow any security equipment to go to the Dominican Republic, until they honor my buddy's contract.

And the official said, she thought it was very odd that a US senator was trying to undermine the law enforcement mission of customs and border patrol. So that was the second thing, was trying to steer this contract. And the third, and they've just started hearing testimony on this. I think this coming week is going to be really exclusive on this. The third thing and by far the worst in my judgment is that he actually tried to intervene with HHS to have the Medicare fraud investigation dropped.

Basically, he wanted them to say that it was okay for Melgen to massively overbill Medicare by millions and millions of dollars, and he went to extraordinary length on that. In fact, at one point, he had a meeting with the HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, with Harry Reid, in Harry Reid's US capitol office, asking her to intervene and to drop the overbilling dispute.

STU: This is insane. This is an insane story. And especially when you can put it up to the news kind of, of the day, where everybody in the media is talking about Tom Price taking flights that cost $1 million.

GLENN: I was just going to say.

STU: And I'm not excited about that story by any means. We're talking about over $100 million. We've got supermodels, private jet flights, all sorts of crazy government contract business.

GLENN: And a very powerful senator.

STU: Yeah. And 22 --

PHIL: He was chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, in fact. And, you know, that was one of the things.

You know, when he was pressuring the State Department to inter -- to intercede with the Dominican and push this port security contract to his friend, he told him, if you don't do it, I'm going to have hearings in my committee. So he was using his official position he pretty clearly. And that's, I think, going to make his defense -- his defense argument -- he's basically making two arguments in his defense, which I find very unpersuasive. We'll see what the jury thinks, of course. He doesn't dispute at all that these facts happened. But what he says is -- I call it the Biz Markie defense. He says, we were just friends. We were just friends. A friend lets a friend use his jet and his resort. And a friend helps his friend with visas and government contracts. It was all just friendship. It wasn't bribery.

To me, if being friends with the person who, you know, corrupts his official office so that you can both live an international high life together, if somehow friendship makes that legal, then the laws are very flawed in this country.

GLENN: Yeah.

PHIL: If that's legal, then the law is not sufficient. Because that should not be legal. It's not ethical. It's not acceptable. This friendship defense is sort of one of the central arguments. The other is based on the McDonald decision at the Supreme Court. The Bob McDonald decision, which was -- which really narrowed the definition of official acts. And they're trying to argue that, look, as -- as a senator, he's not -- he didn't take any official actions when he was pressing the executive branch to do things like approve visas or pressure port security contracts or drop a billing dispute. Because a senator can only vote on legislation as an official act. And the government's response to that argument is basically, you know, if that's right, then the bribery statute would allow putting a PayPal account up on a senator's website and saying give me $50,000 and I'll advocate whatever your issue is with the executive branch. That can't be the case.

But we'll find out. I mean, we'll see in this trial, whether the definition of official act is now so narrow, that a senator can take bribes in exchange for taking action, you know, with respect to the executive branch. And so the defense arguments here, in my judgment, don't dispute any of the corrupt facts. And therefore, even if somehow he's acquitted, which I consider unlikely, but even if somehow he's acquitted, if the Senate ethics committee is worthy of his name, he ought to be kicked out of the Senate anyway. Because he doesn't dispute that he did all these things.

GLENN: So, Phil, can you put this on a scale? Can you compare this to any other -- I mean, this is huge. Can you compare this to any other scandal that you've seen in --

PHIL: I mean, there's really no comparison to anything at least in our lifetimes. I mean, there was some -- there was a senator who was kicked out for corruption in the '40s. I think. I don't know too much of the details of that case. But we've never seen anything quite like this, just the scale and the scope and the brazenness of it. Here's something that's kind of interesting: You know, one of the things the prosecution keeps saying in their opening statement is he did all of this for a man who wasn't even a constituent. Because the doctor is from Palm Beach, Florida. Menendez is a senator from New Jersey. He basically was dedicating his office to the service of somebody who wasn't even a constituent. And Menendez's lawyers responded, well, no. US Senate is a national office, so everyone in America is his constituent.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PHIL: And the judge said, no, I don't think so. And he actually ordered briefing on the definition of the word constituent. So...

GLENN: Wow.

STU: Are they -- that's amazing. Certainly if this was Republican, every media member would go to every Republican and ask them their opinion on Menendez.

GLENN: Yeah. To disavow him.

STU: Yeah. To disavow him. Will you step down? Has there been any attempt at that. And are the reason why the Democrats are sticking by them because they think Christie will -- you know, since he's still in office for a few more weeks, it seems, that he would just, you know, give a Republican the office if he has to step down and they would have an advantage in the Senate.

PHIL: You know, the media showed a little bit of interest a few weeks ago, right when the trial started. CNN did some questioning. CNN has actually done pretty good coverage of this trial on their website. But almost nothing on the TV.

GLENN: Well, you only have 24 hours.

PHIL: Right. You only have 24 hours. Some of the Democrats have been asked. Chuck Schumer has been asked. There have been some RNC trackers out asking sort of this -- the amazing thing to me is the -- the Democrats, a lot of Democrats have been asked this question: Do you think Menendez should resign if he's convicted? And they won't even say yes to that. They'll kind of say, oh, I don't know. He'll have appeals. A convicted felon in the Senate might be all right.

GLENN: What?

PHIL: No, no, no.

GLENN: So you're a convicted felon -- you're a convicted felon. You lose your right to vote, but not you lose your right to vote in the Senate?

PHIL: Correct.

GLENN: That's crazy.

PHIL: Under the constitution, you need a two-thirds vote. So if they do an expulsion vote and the Democrats want to rally behind him, they could cast one of the worst votes of their career and actually keep him there.

GLENN: He'll stay.

PHIL: But if you vote to let a convicted bribe-taking felon senator stay in there, I think that's a vote you'll have a problem with for the rest of your career, which may be brief.

Now, you're correct. The reason why they want to stall and run out the clock, is if a conviction comes down next month, they're going to be looking at the calendar and saying, hmm, Governor Christie is only in office until January 16th. All the polls show that Bill Murphy, the Democrat, is probably going to win that race in November. So if we can somehow stall and run out the clock and say, oh, he's pursuing appeals, and maybe he'll announce a leave of absence, which has no legal meaning. And get to January 16th, then he can resign, and we'll have a Democratic governor appointing a replacement instead of a Republican.

So they're just trying to run out the clock for political advantage, I think, is what's happening.

GLENN: Phil, thank you so much. We'll talk to you again in a couple of weeks, as this trial continues. I'd love to get some updates from you. Thank you so much.

STU: Phil Kerpen is the president of American Commitment. And you can probably read -- his -- he raised a lot of really great opinion pieces as well. They're all over the web.

GLENN: Great opinion pieces.

STU: AmericanCommitment.org is the site.

There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

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Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.

TOP 5 issues that have gotten WORSE since the last State of the Union

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If you saw Biden's State of the Union last week, or Glenn's firey reaction to it, you know that Biden hardly spoke a word that wasn't a flat-out lie.

If you spent the last 12 months in a fallout shelter and Biden's speech was the only media interaction you had since the last State of the Union, you might be tempted to believe that the country has improved in some way over the past year. But the rest of us, who have been living above ground, going to the grocery store, and paying some attention to current events, had only to look around to see that Biden's speech was nothing but hot air.

Here are the TOP 5 issues that have gotten worse since the last State of the Union.

Economy

Biden spent a significant amount of time during the State of the Union boasting about the strength of his economy, but anyone who has checked their bank account lately was left wondering if he was holding his speech upside down. It's not just the cobwebs in your wallet; the numbers show the devastation wrought by "Bidenomics" too. In 2022, American grocery bills increased by 11.4 percent and restaurant bills by 7.7 percent. In 2023 prices only continued to rise, with an additional 1.2 percent increase in food-at-home prices and a 5.1 percent increase in away-from-home prices.

Debt crisis and inflation

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The national debt continues to grow, and Biden managed to add almost 3 trillion dollars in just one year. As of December 2022, the national debt was $31.42 trillion. As of January 2024, the national debt has risen to $34.19 trillion.

Inflation didn't fare much better. While the 2023 annual inflation rate did drop from the horror of 2022, from 6.5 to 3.4 percent, that is still significantly higher than anything we saw before 2021. You also have to remember that it CARRIES year to year, as Glenn explained in his response to Biden's State of the Union: "Yes, it's not as bad as it was, but it's still what it was PLUS what it is now."

Border

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Biden's mismanagement of the southern border has inflamed the border crisis to all-time highs. In 2022 there were a staggering 2.2 million illegal border crossings, but that wasn't enough for Biden apparently, as an additional 2.5 million illegally crossed in 2023. An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Biden took office, and the effects are being felt. There has been a surge in crime across the country that is impacting millions of Americans, including the tragic murder of Laken Riley.

Fentanyl

The fentanyl crisis has only continued to worsen as more and more synthetic opioids flood our streets. Between the fiscal year 2021 and 2022, there was a shocking 54 percent increase in fentanyl trafficking offenses as more and more of the narcotic is smuggled across the southern border. We also saw an increase in fentanyl overdose deaths. In 2022 there were approximately 73,654 deaths, which is a significant increase from 70,601 in 2021.

Education and mental health

While the pandemic is long over, the lingering effects of the lockdowns are still being felt. Unsurprisingly, missing years of school has a major impact on the educational development of children. Kids across America are STILL struggling from pandemic-related setbacks, reading scores are still falling, and parents are reporting that their kids are struggling in their studies. The mental health crisis, another symptom of the COVID lockdowns, has also continued to worsen. Tragically, suicides increased by 2.6 percent between 2021 and 2022, marking the continued decline of mental health in America.

TOP FIVE takeaways from Super Tuesday

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The 2024 Presidential Election is taking shape.

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, the single biggest day in the presidential primary season. More than one-third of all delegates needed for a candidate to become the Presidential nominee of their party was up for grabs along with a plethora of state and local elections. In short, yesterday's results will shape the rest of the election season. It was a big deal.

Here are the top 5 takeaways from yesterday's elections:

Haley drops out

Nikki Haley drops out of the 2024 Presidential election.

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After the mass exodus of Republican candidates in January, most commentators agreed that it was only a matter of time before Haley stepped out as well. Haley put up a valiant effort and held out almost two months longer than the other Republican candidates, but after a disappointing turnout on Super Tuesday, she made the call to step back from the race. There was a small victory for Haley fans, however, in that she won Vermont, her first state primary victory following her win in Washington, D.C.

Trump sweeps the board

Trump wins over 1,000 delegates during Super Tuesday.

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While Haley had a disappointing day yesterday, Trump and his team celebrated a huge win. Aside from Vermont, Trump won every state that had a primary. At the time this was written, Trump had picked up a whopping 731 delegates, bringing his total to 1,004, out of the required 1,215 to win the presidential nomination.

Democrats are not committed to Biden

Biden wins big on Super Tuesday, but he is struggling to maintain his Democrat base.

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On paper, Biden had an excellent Super Tuesday, winning every state primary except American Samoa. However, a closer look reveals cracks in his supporter base. Yesterday, a shocking 19 percent of Minnesota Democrats voted for "uncommitted" instead of Biden. While that wasn't enough to change the outcome of the primary, it shows that Biden is walking on shaky ground, even among Democrats.

This phenomenon wasn't limited to Minnesota either. Eight percent of Colorado and Tennessee Democrats voted "uncommitted," and 10 percent of Massachusetts Democrats and 10 percent of North Carolina Democrats voted "no preference." Is this more evidence of a third-quarter bait-and-switch that Glenn has hypothesized?

The search to replace Feinstein continues

Adam Schiff and Steve Harvey compete for Diane Feinstein's Senate seat.

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California is having two Senate elections to replace the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. There is a special election to fill out the remainder of her term and a regular election to fill her seat for the next six years. The results of the Tuesday primaries put Republican and former Los Angeles Dodgers player Steve Garvey and Democrat Adam Schiff as the front runners, and the two of them will be going head-to-head in November. Surprisingly, even in deep blue California, Garvey won more votes than Schiff in the special primary. Does Garvey have a chance?

Ted Cruz is back up for election in Texas

Ted Cruz is up for re-election in 2024

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The Texas senate primaries were also on Tuesday, and Ted Cruz is back up for election in November. Cruz comfortably won the Republican Primaries with 88 percent of Texas Republicans backing him. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas-area congressman won the Democratic primary with a narrower margin of 58 percent. While it's easy for Texans to take their state's red status for granted, it is vital Texans stay vigilant and cast their vote this November.