So what was Gov. Abbott’s reaction?
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Standing in front of a giant welding machine at a Mach Industrial Group warehouse in north Houston, Ted Cruz appealed to roughly 250 Texans’ Lone Star pride Wednesday afternoon, delivering a drawn-out Alamo reference and promising that he will not back down.
“He [Cruz] wants to come out of March 1 as the unmistakable sole challenger to Trump, and Texas gives him a chance to do that”, Mackowiak said. In a new Monmouth University poll, Cruz has 38% support from likely GOP primary voters in Texas, billionaire businessman Donald Trump has 23%, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has 21%, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has 6% and Ohio Governor John Kasich has 5%. He was attorney general in Texas when he appointed the fast-rising Mr Cruz as his Solicitor General. So Cruz recalls the Alamo.
“Cruz spends relatively little time and energy working for the direct interest of Texas alone”, said Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. While some of Cruz’s supporters in Texas, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have said the senator needs to notch a resounding win Tuesday, Abbott declined to set expectations, including whether Cruz could get more than 50 percent of the vote and sweep the state’s delegates.
“Republicans can not elect a candidate who stood with Democrats for amnesty for those who have entered our country illegally. Sen”.
The Republican candidates are scheduled to debate Thursday evening in Houston. When asked if that included resurrecting his own presidential bid, Perry repeated, “Everyone”.
But brokered conventions are somewhat of a rarity, the last one for Republicans occurred in 1948 when it took three convention ballots to nominate Thomas Dewey for President. “I may not know which one until I walk into the [voting booth]”.
Marco Rubio is a distant third in the Texas TEGNA poll with 17 percent.
Ted Cruz, arguing that only he among the Republican presidential contenders can be counted on to govern as a principled conservative.
“Texas is a life preserver for him if he wins, but the problem with a life preserver is it only keeps your head above water, it doesn’t get you to shore”, said former Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri.
Still, even detractors seem to agree that he has governed as he campaigned for the Senate in 2012: as a champion of conservative principles who views compromise with suspicion. Ted Cruz is our candidate.
Cruz and Rubio are looking ahead to Tuesday’s primary contests differently.
It was far from clear, though, that the two senators did much to solve their basic conundrum – each struggling to emerge as the clear alternative to the front-runner as non-Trump voters continue to splinter their support among the alternatives. Cruz’s campaign is only one of two to win a primary yet.
Ford O’Connell, Republican strategist and former advisor to the McCain-Palin 2008 campaign, says Trump’s momentum has to do with the fact that Cruz and Rubio have been squabbling with each other instead of “turning up the fire” on Trump.
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“If Trump were to somehow win Texas that would be a mortal blow for Cruz and make it hard for him to move forward in the other states”, Mackowiak added. He still promises to work for a flat tax, to repeal every word of Obamacare and appoint Supreme Court justices who strictly follow the Constitution.
