Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin says that Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] will be out of the presidential race if he doesn’t win in Texas on March 1.
“Right now Cruz has to survive in this state [Texas] on Tuesday. He must win or he’s out,” Halperin said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And I think what the Rubio people are counting on is maybe Cruz loses here. Trump is competing in Texas, although not with paid media.” (RELATED: Political Science Professor: Odds Of President Trump Range BETWEEN 97% AND 99%)
“If Cruz loses on Tuesday no matter what else he does around the country, if he loses in Texas, he’ll be out, and at that point Kasich and Rubio will then be up to say, ‘Well, all right, maybe we can win our home states. Maybe we can slow him down,'” Halperin suggested.
“The posture that [Cruz and Rubio are] taking remains thinking as much about doing well to finish second as it does to stop Trump,” he continued. “And these one-off comments about he’s not good enough on Israel or he’s not, doesn’t have the right temperament — there’s no indication in political history that that’s going to slow a guy like Trump with all of his skills and all of his support down.”
According to the Tenga/SurveyUSA poll, Trump and Cruz are tied in Texas but the RealClearPolitics polling average has Cruz is up on Trump by 5.2 percent.