AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – If Texas is Ted Cruz country, the state’s Republican convention is its capital.
At the biennial gathering in 2012, thousands of delegates booed when Gov. Rick Perry dared salute David Dewhurst. That’s because the then-lieutenant governor was battling tea party upstart Cruz for the state’s U.S. Senate seat.
Two years later, the same convention felt like a coming out party for Cruz’s not-yet-announced presidential campaign.
But when 7,000-plus Republicans from across Texas converge on the Dallas convention center beginning Thursday, four years of Cruz coronations may feel like they’re culminating in a let-down.
It won’t be Cruz’s political wake. But the anticipation of bigger things to come for Texas’ brightest conservative star will be tempered by Trump so recently bouncing Cruz from the presidential race.
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