Kinzinger jokes he could 'potentially' run one day to unseat Ted Cruz

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) joked in a new interview that now that he lives in Houston, he would "love" to run against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) one day.

“Actually it'd be kind of fun to run against Ted Cruz, to be honest with you," he told ABC’s Galen Druke on the “538” podcast, when asked if Texas was a good state to run for Congress in. "I'm not doing that, let's be clear. But it would be fun, right?"

“I would love to run against Ted Cruz, because that to me would just be, it would just be like the most, the most complete con artist in politics, like one of them, to be able to run against his face in public would be amazing,” Kinzinger added.

The former lawmaker said that while he would be interested in launching a bid to unseat Cruz, he is “not in a position” to do so yet. However, he said he would “potentially” consider it if “the timing is right.”

While Kinzinger has been an outspoken critic of former President Trump and other members of his party, he maintained that he is still a Republican. Still, he said that Democrats would be wise to run a conservative candidate in Texas if they wanted to win statewide office.

“I think what you want to look at is, first off, if you're a smart Democratic Party, you'd put somebody like me as your candidate, right?" he said. "You'd put them through the primary because, I'm sorry, Beto [O’Rourke] is not going to win Texas. If you get a conservative Democrat, you could win Texas.”

Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) is the leading challenger against Cruz in his reelection bid for next year. His Senate campaign announced earlier this month it had raised about $4.7 million during the third quarter of this year.

Kinzinger, now a senior political commentator for CNN, chose not to run for reelection in 2022. He was one of just two Republicans — the other being former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — to serve on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Illinois Republican has been on a recent media blitz to promote his new book: “Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country," which came out last week.