Why Super Tuesday could be the 'last stand' for Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is from Texas and, boy does he need The Lone Star state to deliver for him on Super Tuesday.

Right now, the Donald Trump Express is rolling toward the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and a nomination speech as the billionaire has racked up 81 delegates through three primary and caucus wins. Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are both holding 17 delegates each.

Super Tuesday has almost 600 delegates up for grabs and Texas is the largest prize with its 155 delegates. While polling shows Trump leading in almost every state voting on Tuesday, Cruz is showing strength in his home state.

Cruz currently leads Trump 34 percent to 26.8 percent — with Rubio at 18.2 percent — in Texas, according to polling averages aggregated by the website Real Clear Politics

Nickel Reddy, owner of Maklemore’s Ale House in Nacogdoches - about two hours north of Houston, is hosting a Cruz event Saturday and said he sees a lot of support for the conservative in the small East Texas town of 33,000.

But while Cruz is performing well in small towns in Texas, Reddy said there is plenty of visible support for Trump as well.

“The younger ones around here seem to be for Trump,” Reddy said by phone. “But there’s a lot of Cruz people around here.”

Nacogdoches is heavily Republican. In 2012, Mitt Romney defeated President Barack Obama 67 percent to 31 percent there. It’s the kind of place Cruz needs to dominate, according to Southe Methodist University Associate Political Science Professor Matthew Wilson.

Wilson said Texas is really “Cruz’s last stand” to make a run at Trump.

“Cruz is particularly strong among the evangelical constituency and has some strength in East Texas,” Wilson said. “Rubio has typically done best among higher income and the suburban areas in Dallas and Houston. But Trump is fairly well spread out all over.”

Thursday night’s debate at the University of Houston may have also helped the anti-Trump sentiment among Republicans.

Both Rubio and Cruz took tus going after Trump. Rubio hit him especially hard on charges of Trump using undocumented immigrants on his properties and Cruz attacked him for Idea supporting Plaed Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act. Pundits praised Rubio for a deft debate performance - with some wondering what took the Florida senator so long to mount an offensive like that.

Advertisement

RELATED STORY: Read about Hollywood’s support of GOP in election.

Jack Pitney, political science professor at Claremont McKea College, said Rubio had likely been biding his time and waiting for Trump to collapse. But when that didn’t happen, he was forced to go on the offensive.

“I don’t think it moves votes immediately, but his performance reassured his supporters and contributors,” Pitney said. “I suspect there will be a massive inflow of cash into the Rubio campaign and the Super PACs supporting him.”

Rubio also kept hitting Trump Friday, appearing on “CBS This Moing” and saying “a con artist is about to take over” the GOP.

But a short time later, Trump picked up the endorsement of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - who is widely credited with pounding Rubio in a previous debate.

A Rubio surge doesn’t help Cruz, but the steady knocks against Trump during the debate didn’t hurt him either as 13 states line up to cast votes to pick a Republican presidential nominee.

Cruz has maintained that he’s the only one who has actually beaten Trump - in Iowa - and that he’s the best candidate to beat the Democrats in a general election. Cruz also laid out key endorsements in Texas - notably from sitting Gov. Greg Abbott.

But Cruz was mindful of Rubio’s performance as well in the debate and pointed out on CNN that Rubio isn’t leading Trump in Florida polls and said, “If you can’t win your home state, that’s a problem.”

Friday moing, Trump took to Twitter — as he’s been prone to do most of the campaign — to fire at Rubio as well.

“Lightweight choker Marco Rubio looks like a little boy on stage,” Trump wrote. “Not presidential material.”

Some Republicans are wondering how things got to this messy point - where a billionaire tycoon and reality television show entertainer has bested more traditional candidates on the path to the GOP nomination.

Wilson said the Texas Republican Party has been neutral on the candidates, but he explained they privately want to stop Trump’s momentum because they fear his candidacy will destroy the GOP and lead to not only losing the White House in November, but possibly hurting Republicans down the voting ticket as well.

He said there is a fear that a Trump nomination would keep some Republicans at home on Election Day.

“Some of those Republicans think he’s not a conservative and lacks any core ideological conviction,” Wilson said. “They fear real damage done to the party and him losing to Hillary Clinton could be so catastrophic, it would put them back to 2008.”

- - , .