Gov. Greg Abbott cast his ballot today in effort to get out the vote. Despite his lagging poll numbers, the governor still feels confident Cruz will win Texas.
What was supposed to be a no worries win in Texas has turned into last minute get-out-the vote for Cruz on this final day of early voting before the March 1st primaries.
Cruz has trailed Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump for most of the campaign and in recent weeks has also taken a backseat to Marco Rubio.
While polls released by Houston Public Media and the Texas Tribune give Cruz the upper-hand in Texas, Cruz isn’t taking any chances. He’s calling upon Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, former-Gov. Rick Perry and Cruz’s former boss, Gov. Greg Abbott to help get-out-the vote.
Abbott said he's known the candidate in ways that others have not and that is why he and other Cruz campaign surrogates are stumping for Cruz.
“I have insight into Ted Cruz that voters don’t have and so my goal is to explain to voters what my insight into Ted Cruz is," Abbott explained.
While Abbott and others are burning the midnight oil for Cruz, the Rubio and Trump campaigns are hoping to get as many Texas delegates as they can on Tuesday by blanketing the airwaves with television ads this weekend.
Then there’s the possibility of a brokered convention, leaving the door open for Republican presidential candidates that have dropped out of the race early, like former-Gov. Rick Perry.
“If no one gets enough of the delegates to get the nomination and you go to a brokered convention, at that particular point in time it becomes a new ballgame for everyone," Perry told CNN's reporter Erin Burnett following Thursday night's debate in Houston. When asked if that included resurrecting his own presidential bid, Perry repeated, "Everyone."
If no candidate has won a pre-existing majority of delegates ahead of the convention, then delegates will redesign the convention ballot and vote as many times as necessary until there is a clear presidential nominee.
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.
