A new poll of Texas’ likely Republican primary voters by CBS News shows Ted Cruz has a double-digit lead over his closest rival.
Sitting in single digits with Texas’ GOP primary voters are everyone else, except Donald Trump at 30 percent.
This is very bad news for the out-of-touch Austin establishment, who have long opposed Ted Cruz.
For example, liberal Republican House Speaker Joe Straus of San Antonio has come out strongly against Cruz, putting his weight behind former Gov. Jeb Bush. It would appear Straus is one of only a handful of people in the Lone Star State supporting Bush, since he polls at 4 percent — given that the margin of error is 4.4 percent, it’s possible Straus is Bush’s ONLY Texas supporter.
Even more troubling for left-leaning Republicans like Straus are the self-reported leanings of the electorate:
Very liberal 1%
Liberal 4%
Moderate 12%
Conservative 38%
Very Conservative 44%
Not sure 1%
A few other takeaways…
Respectively, 72% and 80% of Texas GOP voters would “never consider” supporting Jeb Bush and John Kasich.
Texas Republicans overwhelmingly (86 percent) consider the “birther” attacks against Cruz to be “not serious.”
Only 7 percent of GOP voters “oppose” the Tea Party movement.
And on the establishment’s go-to charge that Cruz is too extreme… Some 77 percent of Texans actually believe Cruz’s approach to achieving his policy goals is “about right.”
