Cruz win could have coattails for other conservatives

San Antonio Express-News:

For the first time in their long campaign slog, independent polls are showing the so-called movement candidate, Ted Cruz, leading the establishment favorite, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. 

The clouds hovering over much of Texas this week could be a statewide portent for the better known of the two Houston Republicans vying to replace U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. 

Polls also suggest that Cruz is not the only insurgent candidate on the move as the days roll toward the July 31 runoff. 

In San Antonio, for example, tea party favorite Donna Campbell, a New Braunfels physician, is threatening to derail the long legislative career of state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio. In that race and other GOP runoff races around the state, enthusiasm and turnout are key. 

“If less than a million people vote and Cruz wins, he's likely to have coattails,” said Mustafa Tameez, a Houston political consultant. “He'll pull in a lot of the movement candidates.” 

Cruz has insisted all along that his supporters have the enthusiasm, and a new survey suggests that he might be right. The survey, by Wenzel Strategies, shows Cruz leading Dewhurst 47 percent to 38 percent with two weeks to go. Dewhurst won the first round of voting by 10 points, but did not get the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. The Columbus, Ohio-based Wenzel Strategies is the Republican pollster that projected the tea party-fueled defeat of longtime Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar earlier this year.

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I would like to see both Cruz and Campbell win.  She surprised a lot of people in the first round after being outspent by Wentworth and another candidate.  Cruz has come on strong in recent days despite being outspent handily by Dewhurst. Dewhurst has been filling the airwaves with an unfair attack trying to make a dubious ling between Cruz and a Chinese firm represented by his law firm.  I think the ad is so far out there it is backfiring.