Cruz misses Lynch vote after railing against it

Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) missed the vote on Loretta Lynch’s nomination for attorney general despite being one of her most vocal opponents in the upper chamber.

Cruz, who had slammed GOP leaders for allowing the nomination to move forward, was the only senator to miss the vote.

While the senator’s whereabouts are unclear, it’s possible that he was flying back to Texas for a presidential fundraiser that is being held for him in Dallas.

{mosads}”The Republican majority, if it so chose, could defeat this nomination,” Cruz said Thursday. “But the Republican majority has chosen to go forward and allow Loretta Lynch to be confirmed.”

Cruz also suggested that Republicans who supported Lynch would have to explain their votes back in their home states.

“I would note there are a few voters back home that are asking what exactly is the difference between a Democratic and Republican majority,” he said. “That’s a question each of us will have to answer to our constituents back home.”

Lynch, who was nominated more than 160 days ago, was confirmed in a 56-43 vote on Thursday afternoon.

Cruz did vote against the Lynch nomination during a procedural vote earlier Thursday.

Amanda Carpenter, the Texas Republican’s communications director, suggested on Twitter that the cloture vote was “the only vote that mattered.”

If the Senate could get 60 votes for cloture, they could get 51 for final confirmation. Cloture is the only vote that mattered.

— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) April 23, 2015

So far this year, the Texas Republican has been one of the senators most likely to skip votes.

Between January and March, Cruz missed more votes than any other senator except Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was at home recovering from an injury, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another presidential candidate.

So far this month, Cruz has missed 20 of the Senate’s 28 roll call votes, according to GovTrack.

This story was updated at 5:15 p.m.