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 Polls show Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, is poised to win the
state's nominating contest on Tuesday - the biggest voting day so
far in the 2016 race - a result seen as essential to keeping alive
his chance of winning his party's nomination.
But he could be stopped short of thresholds required to sweep its
155 delegates to the Republican convention if national front-runner
Trump and other rivals win enough of the vote.
Cruz needs as resounding a victory as possible to stay competitive
on a day when Trump is expected to put in a dominant performance in
other states voting on "Super Tuesday".
Interviews with more than two dozen voters in Texas suggest that
Trump's anti-immigration platform - which includes building a
Mexico-funded border wall and deporting millions of illegal
immigrants - could present Cruz's biggest weakness against the real
estate mogul.
The senator proposes similarly tough policies to prevent illegal
immigration, but many Texans credit Trump with vaulting it to a top
issue in the election, largely because of his tough, outraged tone
rather than policy differences.
“Trump has been honest enough to say what we’re all thinking but
we’re all scared to say,” said Sharon Neil, 68, of Fort Worth, who
is voting for Trump.
Republicans in Texas, home to about 1.5 million undocumented
immigrants, rank immigration the third most important problem facing
the country, compared to seventh overall nationwide, according to
Reuters/Ipsos polling. And fans of Trump were twice as likely
nationwide as Cruz supporters to say immigration was a top issue.
Scott Ragno, 39, another Trump supporter from Fort Worth, said
Trump's tone on immigration was attractive. "Is building a fence the
right answer? I don’t know about that. But I definitely think he’d
do something to curb the problem."
Cruz has a strong base of support among Texas's grassroots Tea Party
activists, high-profile endorsements including the state’s governor
Greg Abbott, and a lead in most recent polls in Texas. He got 42
percent of support in a CBS News poll released on Sunday, compared
to 31 percent for Trump. And Cruz led by 39 percent to Trump's 26
percent in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll the same day.
DELEGATE COUNT
Cruz's lead over Trump in Texas has, however, shown signs of
decline, according to polls aggregated by Huffington Post since the
two launched their campaigns in June.
(http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-texas-republican-presidential-primary#!selected=Cruz,Trump
)
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Winning a majority of votes in a Texas district allows a candidate
to sweep all of the district's delegates. A candidate gets to sweep
an additional category of 47 delegates if he wins a majority of the
vote statewide - an outcome that is unlikely for
Cruz.(http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2016/texas-delegates/)
Trump has vented over immigration from the get-go, calling Mexican
immigrants rapists and drug dealers at his campaign launch in June.
At his rallies, he recounts incidents where Americans were killed by
illegal immigrants.
Cruz has pledged to build a wall too. During a Republican debate on
Thursday, he criticized Trump for giving money to politicians who
tried to overhaul immigration laws, including by offering new
protections to people in the country illegally.
Cruz has argued Trump has been inconsistent, criticizing him for
hiring foreign workers instead of Americans to work at his Florida
hotel.
“It is a fact that for four decades Donald Trump has supported
open-borders Democrats,” Cruz said Monday in San Antonio. “Nobody
who supports open-border Democrats for 40 years can care about
securing the borders.”
Trump, who held a rally in Fort Worth on Friday and packed a
convention center hall with raucous supporters, has hit back by
saying Cruz has toughened his stance on immigration lately mainly
because of him.
Voters in the Houston and Fort Worth areas described concerns about
immigration ranging from overcrowded schools to more crime to
cultural change.
"It's not that we don't want (immigrants) here," said Neil, the
Trump supporter.
But she said she felt immigrants were taking a toll on the public
school system - an issue close to her heart because her
daughter-in-law is a teacher and her son is studying education.
(Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Richard Valdmanis
and Stuart Grudgings)
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