Sen. Ted Cruz, the first-term senator and failed candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 who is facing a tough re-election battle in Texas against Beto O’Rourke, warned over the weekend that liberals are trying to turn Texas into California.

“We are seeing tens of millions of dollars flooding into the state of Texas from liberals all over the country who desperately want to turn the state of Texas blue,” Cruz said at a Republican rally Saturday in Katy, Texas.

“ ‘They want us to be just like California, right down to tofu and silicon and dyed hair.’ ” — Sen. Ted Cruz

Which, of course, turned into more of the mockery for which Cruz is a seeming magnet.

For one, the Calgary, Alberta–born Cruz admitted his wife is a vegetarian from California. So ... (awkward pause).

And a lot of the global tofu supply is produced from American-grown soy.

Secondly, silicon has been a big part of Texas for as long as personal computers have been around.

Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. TXN, -2.51% was one of the first semiconductor giants, and while people may know it best for its ’80s-era calculators, it still has a market cap of about $105 billion and more than 12,000 workers in the Americas.

Then there’s Dell Inc., the Round Rock, Texas, tech company that founder Michael Dell took private in 2013. It’s the largest non-oil company in Texas, and the third largest PC company in the world. Its products use a lot of silicon chips.

There’s also Intel Corp. INTC, -2.26% , the world’s second largest maker of semiconductors, which has a major facility in Austin, while other chip giants such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD, -3.82% and South Korea’s SK Hynix 000660, +0.95% have Lone Star State facilities, as well.

As of 2014, Texas was home to 22% of the U.S.’s tech manufacturing jobs — topping California. For years, Texas politicians have bragged about luring tech companies from California by offering lower taxes and fewer regulations, among other incentives, and in 2016 Texas ranked second in the U.S. in total tech jobs.

So, as to that Cruz-maligned silicon? Texas has plenty.

And as for dyed hair, go to brunch in the Dallas suburbs and see how that the argument that it’s a California import holds up, suggested a number of eye rollers on social media.

On a completely unrelated note, White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney questioned Cruz’s likability at a Republican meeting in New York on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported, and warned Cruz could lose his seat to the upstart Democrat O’Rourke.