We're just one day away from putting the 2016 election in the record books – so we thought we'd take a few minutes to highlight the top five Texas moments that shaped the election. Kevin Diaz, Washington correspondent for the Houston Chronicle, says many of these top five Texas-related moments involve the state's junior senator and one-time presidential candidate, Ted Cruz.
Counting down in reverse order:
Moment #5: Ted Cruz announcing his bid at Liberty University in Virginia
"He was the first guy out of the chute and that started the 2016 campaign and it signaled very strongly the direction that Cruz was going to go in. He was going to focus like a laser on evangelical Christian conservatives and might have worked out for him if some guy named Donald Trump hadn't jumped in."
Moment #4: Democrats buying ads in Texas after polls showed Hillary on a run in mid-October
"It shocked people but I think in retrospect, we can say it was probably more of a feint or a head fake."
Moment #3: Cruz winning the Iowa primary
"Trump had been pulling out much bigger crowds. There was a lot more hoopla and excitement about him. People just thought he would just sweep through. But Trump made a mistake. He made a tactical error at the last minute and he bailed out on the debate in Des Moines. People sort of took that as a diss. I think that cost Trump and it helped Cruz."
Moment #2: Cruz not endorsing Trump at the Republican National Convention
"Everybody's still waiting for the magic word, the e-word: endorsement. And it's not coming. And then, out of his mouth comes some phrase about 'voting your conscience,' which sounds innocent enough on its face, but that had also been the rallying cry for the 'Never Trump' people leading up to the convention, so everybody knew what that meant right away.... When Cruz walked off the stage, he was literally being booed off the stage."
Moment #1: The Wall
"I don't know if it's so much a moment, as just the whole theme – if there's one theme that runs through Donald Trump's entire campaign it was this proposition about building this wall and making the Mexicans pay for it somehow."
Post by Hannah McBride.
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