Jerry Jones donated to Ted Cruz campaign amid Republican's sports 'curse' as Cowboys now crumble
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones reportedly donated $20,000 to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's re-election bid, according to Front Office Sports.
Jones' donation to Cruz may have come at a much bigger price to those who believe in superstition, however.
The "Ted Cruz curse" is a popular sports theory that is based on a pattern of unfortunate events happening to teams that Cruz has associated with. The curse has become so widespread that fans of the Texas Longhorns college football team launched a petition on Change.org to keep Cruz away from the university's sporting events. Cruz was infamously blamed after the Longhorns lost in January’s Sugar Bowl.
Another instance in which association with Cruz was followed by sports misfortune includes the Houston Astros' recent series loss to the upstart Detroit Tigers in the American League Wild Card series earlier this month. Cruz was seen attending the game, and the Astros were swept and kept out of the ALCS for the first time since 2016. In 2018, during the NBA Western Conference finals between the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors, Cruz posted a photo of himself sitting courtside for Game 7, as Houston went on to lose in one of the worst shooting performances of James Harden's career.
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But now Jones has made the interaction with Cruz a financial one in a big election year. And Jones' reported $20,000 donation to the curse-associated senator has been revealed amid a surprisingly bad start for the Cowboys.
The Cowboys fell to 3-4 on the season this past weekend when they lost to the San Francisco 49ers 30-24, in an ongoing streak of losses to the storied rivalry that includes two playoff defeats in the last three years. The Cowboys defense has been one of the worst in the league, both before and after injuries to star pass rushers Micah Parsons and Demarcus Lawrence.
Meanwhile, star quarterback Dak Prescott has regressed from his MVP candidacy last year after signing the largest contract in NFL history with the team just hours before its first game of the season. Prescott has thrown eight interceptions to just 10 touchdowns through the first seven games, and is on pace for the worst passer rating of his career this season.
Overall, it's the Cowboys' worst start since 2020, when the team finished 6-10 and in third place in the NFC East, where they currently sit now. It's especially surprising given the high expectations Dallas had going into the season off the heels of three straight 12-win campaigns.
Meanwhile, Cruz is fighting in a highly competitive race to retain his seat against Democrat challenger Collin Allred.
TEXAS DEM ALLRED SAYS HE OPPOSES ‘BOYS IN GIRLS’ SPORTS' DESPITE PAST OF ALLOWING IT
Real Clear Politics polling average shows Cruz with a five-point lead in the race. There are some troubling signs for the Republican incumbent, including recent polls that show Cruz with a lead close to within the margin of error.
Some polls leading up to Cruz’s 2018 Senate race with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, showed a similarly close race, though Cruz was able to hold off the Democratic challenger by under three percentage points.
But that close win was also a stark departure from Cruz’s 2012 victory, when he easily topped former Texas Democratic state Rep. Paul Sadler by nearly 16 percentage points.
Cruz himself said that he is "in the middle of an epic battle" against Allred in a recent interview on Fox News' "Life, Liberty & Levin."
One method that Allred's campaign has used to target Cruz is the stigma of his sports curse, and Texas Democrats have even dedicated a page on their website to pushing the theory.
Allred's campaign even released an advertisement based on the curse.
"Sports fans from across Texas are suffering from the same affliction: the Ted Cruz curse… Want to win? Lose Cruz," Allred said in the ad.
Meanwhile, Cruz has hammered Allred on the Democrat's previous actions in supporting legislation that would allow trans athletes to compete in women's and girls' sports. The Cruz campaign has launched multiple ads during NFL games addressing Allred's history on the issue.
Allred was previously elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 32nd District in the 2018 midterms. Just months after assuming office the following January, he cosponsored and voted for the Equality Act, "which would require schools to include male athletes who identify as transgender girls on female sports teams," in May 2019. Allred has also gone so far as to oppose a parents' bill of rights that would give people the ability to intervene in their daughters competing and sharing locker rooms with biological males at public schools.
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