Cruz strategy paying off?

AUSTIN - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s friendly approach to mogul Donald Trump might be paying off in Texas.

A poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Texas Lyceum showed that Trump leads the Republican field in Texas, but Cruz is close behind and is the second choice for more than a third of Trump’s supporters.

Cruz could be expected to have a strong swath of support among Republicans in his home state.

But his strategy with regard to Trump may have kept Cruz from alienating a bigger share of businessman’s backers. Trump, as he has led in polls, has been harshly criticized by some other Republicans after controversy-stirring remarks on immigration and about prominent women including, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly and GOP candidate Carly Fiorina.

Putting aside Trump’s remarks on women, Trump on policy issues including the need to halt illegal immigration “has been saying a lot of the things that Cruz has been saying for a long time,” said Josh Blank, Lyceum research director.

But rather than taking a sour-grapes approach, Blank said, “Cruz has been pretty happy to say, ‘Thank God he’s been bringing up these issues. He’s right.’ And he has been kind of sitting, waiting in the wings for Trump to eventually drop out.

“It’s safe to say Cruz would benefit most in Texas if Trump were to drop out. I think he would benefit most in a lot of places, amongst the traditional candidates,” said Blank.

With Trump at 21 percent support and Cruz at 16 percent, the difference between them was within the margin of error for that question on the poll.

The poll also asked voters for their second choices and found that 37 percent of Trump supporters picked Cruz next, according to the Lyceum.

On the Democratic side, former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton is ahead in the primary battle, according to the poll.

In a hypothetical general-election matchup, Clinton is behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Cruz and Trump.

But Clinton trails Trump by only 2 percentage points, within the margin of error, and she is ahead of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in a head-to-head matchup.

“Mrs. Clinton actually polls better in Texas right now than one might have expected,” said University of Texas at Austin professor Daron Shaw, who oversaw the poll along with Blank. “But this is primarily due to her greater name recognition and the divisiveness of the GOP contest at this early stage.”

The poll of 1,000 Texans was conducted Sept. 8-21 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The margin of error is bigger for the subsets of registered or likely voters, Republicans and Democrats.

It is plus or minus 3.35 percentage points among all registered voters and plus or minus 3.9 percentage points for likely voters.

For the Republican primary ballot, the margin of error is plus or minus 6.01 percentage points, and it’s plus or minus 7.15 percent for the Democratic primary ballot.

With the big GOP field and primary voting months away, the poll found that “haven’t thought about it enough” got a bigger percentage among expected primary voters than a number of the candidates.

On the Republican side, 5 percent hadn’t thought about it enough - a bigger percentage than those who supported Trump, Cruz, Bush, surgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina.

Twelve GOP candidates had less than 5 percent support support, including Rubio, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and two who have dropped out - former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Clinton had 36 percent support; U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont had 24 percent; Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn’t announced, had 15 percent, and Jim Webb, former U.S. senator from Virginia, was at 2 percent. Lincoln Chafee and Martin O’Malley had zero support.

Aside from the 2016 race, the poll found similar job approval ratings for President Obama and Gov. Greg Abbott among all Texans, a bigger group than registered or likely voters.

Fifty-six percent said they “strongly approve” or “somewhat approve” of the job Abbott is doing, while 52 percent said Obama is doing a “very good” or “somewhat good” job.

Because the job approval items were asked of all Texas adults, Shaw said, “the preponderance of non-white respondents produces relatively strong numbers for Democrats.”

Cruz is a long term cure (at least a beginning of a cure) for the disease, Trump is short term alleviation of some symptoms of the disease which will still kill us.

For instance, Cruz says he will direct his attorney general pick to pursue the crimes of the IRS, Fast and furious, and Benghazi etc to the fullest extent where ever that path leads without regard for party. That's something he can actually do within the constitution with no input from congress. That's something that would actually drain the swamp and give us a clean spot to start rebuilding from.

Trump makes grand promises but doesn't bother to mention how he will get them done within the confines of the constitution. He can throw out a grand tax plan all he wants but its still meaningless if congress doesn't actually enact it. Once congress does get a hold of it, its going to be a whole different animal when they're done.

Despite his fight with congress, I see Ted Cruz as someone who could still work with congress from a position of power. I frankly don't see Trump as ever being able to work with anyone holding equal power to himself.

..."Trump on policy issues including the need to halt illegal immigration “has been saying a lot of the things that Cruz has been saying for a long time".....

Yep....and he's been on the front lines fighting the establishment for a very long time. Trumps just getting his feet wet....

.....Ted Cruz The "Trailblazer!".....

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>> “I frankly don’t see Trump as ever being able to work with anyone holding equal power to himself.” <<

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I agree completely.

Nothing Trump has thrown into the wind has any credible substance to it.
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You people just love to hate each other around here don’t you?

READ what I have posted here. I LIKE Ted Cruz. If he became President to actually do the things he has promised, nobody would be happier than me because more than most except for maybe Rand Paul, Cruz seems to get that our greatest threat possibly more than the Muslim extremists, is the mostly unconstitutional federal government that threatens to extinguish the Constitution which is the American People’s only legal protection of their freedoms against government tyranny.

At this point in time, however, I don’t see Cruz winning. If you’re for a football team and they’re sitting close to last place, if you say you don’t see them winning it doesn’t mean you don’t like them!

IMO, at this pint in time, Cruz’s best chance at the Presidency would be as Trump’s VP. That’s my best guess. Could I be wrong? Of course! But it certainly doesn’t make me a “Cruz hater.”

Dang man, shoot first and ask questions later...maybe. Neither Cruz not Trump does that.

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