GOP hopefuls face off one more time in Texas
Feisty debate is hosted by CNN in Houston.
Ted Cruz outfoxed veteran politicians on his way to the Senate and raced to the front of the Republican presidential race.
Now, the Texas senator faces one of the most critical challenges of his political career: Capturing his home state in Tuesday’s GOP primary.
Like many things in Texas, the prize is huge: the state’s 155 delegates are the biggest grab yet of the GOP primary season and more than the four previous states combined.
Cruz has long been seen as the favorite here, with a political infrastructure in place dating back to his 2012 Senate run and bigname Republican backers.
On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott added his endorsement.
But Cruz faces the political juggernaut of Donald Trump, who has won three contests in a row, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who edged him out for second place in South Carolina and Nevada.
“Super Tuesday, I believe, will be the single most important day of this entire presidential election,” Cruz said at a Houston rally Wednesday. Eleven states, including Texas, will hold GOP contests Tuesday.
The three candidates squared off in a debate at the University of Houston on Thursday, along with the other remaining GOP hopefuls, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
Then, Trump is scheduled to speak at a rally Friday at the Fort Worth Convention Center, which holds more than 10,000 people.
That same day, Cruz has four Texas events scheduled: in Beaumont, Katy, Rosenberg and Kingwood, according to his campaign website. Rubio spoke at a Wednesday rally in Houston on and will attend another in Dallas on Friday. In a University of Texas/ Texas
Tribune poll released Tuesday, Cruz led all GOP candidates among Texas Republican voters with 37% support, followed by Trump with 29% and Rubio with 15%.
Another poll, by WFAA-TV in Dallas and TEGNA, had Cruz and Trump tied at 32% among GOP voters with Rubio at 17%.
“I think if you went back a year ago and look at the Cruz strategy, you’d say Texas is very central to Cruz picking up delegates … and winning the nomination,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas-Austin. “Trump’s presence in Texas has complicated that.”
The Texas GOP primary is based on a proportional system where 44 delegates are awarded according to statewide results and 108 are allocated based on how the candidates do in the state’s congressional districts. (Three delegates act as super-delegates and aren’t obligated to reveal their alliance until the Republican convention in July.) A candidate needs at least 20% of the vote to win any statewide delegates. Cruz is still expected to finish strong, said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston.
He has a get-out-the-vote infrastructure in place from his 2012 upset victory over then-lieutenant governor David Dewhurst, as well as the backing of former governor Rick Perry and current Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Still, Cruz would need to win around two-thirds of Texas’ 155 delegates to show he has staying power and boost his chances at the nomination, Jones said.
Less than that and his campaign could be showing signs of sputtering, he said.
Thus, Trump could lose Texas and still rattle Cruz’s presidential hopes.
“The principal goal for the Trump campaign in Texas is not to win but to wound the Cruz campaign,” Jones said.
Ted Cruz would need to win around twothirds of Texas’ 155 delegates to show he has staying power.