US election was ‘revenge of flyover country’: Ted Cruz

US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaks at the 2016 National Lawyers Convention at the Mayflower Hotel, on November 18, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

US Senator Ted Cruz says Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat to Donald Trump in the presidential election was the "revenge of flyover country."

Speaking at the National Lawyers Convention on Friday, the Texas senator said the Nov. 8 election “was an incredible vindication for the American people across this country, and especially those that you know in rural America, in what elites on both coasts consider to be ‘flyover country.’”

“This election can be well understood as the revenge of flyover country,” Cruz emphasized.

Trump’s campaign had been hit with many controversies since its inception in early 2015. But the billionaire businessman still managed to stun the world by defeating the heavily-favored Democratic candidate in the election.

Cruz, who ran a bitter primary campaign against Trump, said the Clinton campaign was “utterly flabbergasted.”

Donald Trump (L) and Ted Cruz participate in a presidential debate on March 3, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

“They had not even contemplated the possibility that they might not prevail. And that, I think, is the direct result of not listening to and not hearing the American people,” he added.

Cruz, who refused to endorse Trump until late in the race, praised the Republican president-elect’s pick of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general. “He is a committed and deeply principled conservative.”

"When you're given control of the executive and the legislature, it's time to put up or shut up. There are no excuses. We've got to deliver. And I think that is what the voters across the country expect and it's what I very much hope we will give them," Cruz said.

The Texas senator visited the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York last Tuesday to offer assistance during the transition talks. Cruz’s name had been floated by Trump’s transition team and the media as the next attorney general.

Speculation is now swirling that Cruz might be given another key post in Trump's administration.

Cruz and Trump viciously attacked one another during the primary elections.