Ted Cruz has had a rough week. First, he came in third in South Carolina. Then he had to fire his chief national spokesman,
Rick Tyler. Then he came in third (again) in Nevada. And what’s the dark cloud hovering over all of it? He is
losing evangelical voters – his “loyal” base – to Donald Trump at an increasing rate.
So is there any light at the end of the tunnel for Ted? Maybe a little. Greg Abbott, the governor of Cruz’s home state of Texas, just endorsed him.
Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott Have Been Patting Each Other’s Backs for a While
As Abbott alludes to in his endorsement video, the two Tea Party darlings have a
professional history together – Cruz was the Texas solicitor general while Abbott served as attorney general in the early 2000s.
Cruz also served as
Abbott’s voice in Washington D.C. when Texans needed answers about Operation Jade Helm 15.
Oh you haven’t heard of it? Operation Jade Helm was a
routine Army training exercise that was taking place in Texas and other states in 2015. However, Texans were up in arms (some literally) when they found out about the exercise, which they were convinced was actually a detailed plan by the Obama administration to take over the United States and institute martial law.
So what was Gov. Abbott’s reaction? He
deployed the Texas State Guard to monitor the Navy SEALS and Green Berets to make sure there wasn’t any funny business going on in his state.
And while the sane world simply laughed at Abbott’s poor use of taxpayer dollars, Cruz’s office was reaching out to the Pentagon to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. It must have worked because there hasn’t been any martial law takeover by President Obama… yet.
Conspiracy theories aside, Abbott’s endorsement is likely to give a much needed boost to Cruz, who desperately needs to win his home state on Super Tuesday, March 1.