Sen. Ted Cruz said Republicans will take the open Texas Senate seat and Alaska’s race even while warning that communists and Islamists are staging a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party, if conservatives turn out.

Cruz appeared Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” alongside Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) with guest host Charlie Hurt. The Texas Republican framed both contests as real fights that remain essentially tied with the November 3 midterms 18 days away.

Hurt turned first to the Texas numbers. Polls have shown Talarico and Ken Paxton inside the margin of error, and Hurt noted Cruz himself has been underestimated before.

Cruz answered directly. Breitbart carried the exchange.

"Look, in Texas, it’s a real fight, just like Alaska, it’s a real fight. Both races, I think, are tied right now. Now, here’s the good news, Charlie, we’re going to win Texas, and we’re going to win Alaska. Both of these races, we’re going to win, but we’re 18 days out. It’s all about turnout. The crazies, the radicals, look, we’re witnessing a hostile takeover of the Democrat Party by communists and Islamists. They’re going to show up. We’ve got to make sure commonsense conservatives show up."

That is the choice Cruz put in front of voters. The other side’s hardest-left factions will cast ballots. Ordinary conservatives must match them or lose ground they cannot easily recover.

Paxton is the Republican standard-bearer in the open Texas seat. Recent survey work has shown him holding a slim edge, yet the race stays inside the error margin and will be decided by who actually shows up.

Polling in the Texas Senate contest has stayed razor-thin for weeks, exactly the picture Cruz described.

Turnout decides whether the radicals set the terms

Cruz did not soften the language. He called the force now driving the Democratic Party a hostile takeover by communists and Islamists. Those voters, he said, are motivated and will vote. Commonsense conservatives have to do the same.

The senator has drawn the same line on other progressive figures. In a separate Hannity segment he rejected the softer “socialist” label for New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and stated flatly that Mamdani is a communist while criticizing his policy record.

Fox News aired that assessment as Cruz kept the focus on ideology rather than branding.

Talarico, the Democrat opposite Paxton, has spent the cycle navigating the same left-wing currents. He has publicly rejected the socialist label even while relying on donors from that corner of the party.

Voters can examine that record for themselves in coverage of how Talarico handles the socialist donor network that still funds his bid.

Cruz’s larger point was institutional. When the loudest activists inside one party are the ones who reliably vote, they pull the whole apparatus leftward. The result is candidates and platforms that look nothing like the party of a generation ago.

Alaska mirrors the same turnout math

Sullivan sat beside Cruz for the joint appearance. Cruz treated the Alaska Senate race as equally tight and equally winnable for Republicans, again on the condition that conservatives vote. No separate quotes from Sullivan appeared in the segment recap, but the paired message was clear: two toss-up seats, one common requirement.

November 3 is fixed. The 18-day clock Cruz cited leaves little room for later surges. Early voting and Election Day turnout will settle both contests.

Talarico’s own positioning has shifted on cultural flashpoints, including recent statements on transgender athletes in girls’ sports after earlier opposition to restrictions.

That evolution is detailed in reporting on how the Texas Democrat adjusted his stance under campaign pressure.

Cruz’s warning fits a longer pattern. Progressive icons such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani have drawn bipartisan criticism for tone-deaf moments that ordinary voters notice.

One such episode involved laughter during a 9/11 reading of the names, covered when Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani faced the backlash.

The Texas candidate has also highlighted cultural choices that strike many voters as far outside the mainstream, including naming a drag performer who works with children as a favorite.

Those details surface in accounts of Talarico’s public cultural preferences and reinforce why Cruz speaks of radicals who will not stay home.

Cruz left no ambiguity about the stakes. The races are tied. The other side’s most extreme elements will vote. Conservatives who stay home hand them the Senate seats and the party apparatus that comes with them.

Voters still hold the decisive power. They can reject the takeover at the ballot box, or they can watch it harden into permanent control.