Tuesday, competing with everybody else, most important night on the primary calendar, theyd be getting tons of attention from the candidates, theyd be the biggest state voting that day, theyd get all that ad spending, theyd get all that attention the state needs. They thought theyd be the beginning of march they ended up may 29th when it was all completely over on the republican side, at least, i mean, it was before the end of april when the rnc had already declared mitt romney the de facto nominee of their party and started putting National Resources behind him. It was cooked. It was done. By the time Texas Republicans got to vote at the end of may. And that was terrible news for anybody who really wanted texas to be a republican battleground in the president ial race in 2012. It was bad news for people who were sort of rooting for texas in that way but it was also particularly individually terrible news for this one guy in texas, this one statewide officeholder in texas who if nothing else has brought us, i believe, the greatest Campaign Song of our generation. Now this it starts off a little slow. Theres, like, eight seconds of buildup here, but stick with me. You have to hear the eight seconds of buildup. You have to hear those first eight seconds or so in order to appreciate it when the groove kicks in. So just work with me here. Savin babies, protecting ladies its like a basement synthesizer funk antiabortion republican song. But that guy with the greatest you think im bad at dancing in a chair, you should see when i stand up. This guy with the greatest Campaign Song of alltime. David dewhurst. He in 2012, he was the republican establishment candidate for a u. S. Senate seat that opened up in texas. Kay Bailey Hutchison was will you get rid of it, please . Away. Stop it. Thank you. He was the establishment candidate for the u. S. Senate seat that opened up in 2012. David dewhurst. The Lieutenant Gov you got to love. Kay Bailey Hutchison was leaving her senate seat and, of course, any senate seat from the state of texas is a safe republican seat, right . Texas hasnt sent a democrat to the United States senate since i think the 80s, since 1988. Seeing the senate seat come open, they knew the general election wouldnt matter for that seat. Yeah, the democrats would run somebody nr it but it wouldnt be a competition. Basically all you have to do is win that seat in the senate in texas is win the republican primary in texas and that was 2012 and David Dewhurst, he was considered to be basically a shooin for that seat, basically thought of David Dewhurst stop it. He was thought to inherit it from kay Bailey Hutchison. Rick perry endorsed David Dewhurst and campaigned for him. Dewhurst has a ton of money. Hed already been elected four times statewide. He was maybe not a household name but he was very well known in texas. He was absolutely the establishment choice for that senate seat in 2012. He was going to win it. So if you wanted to stop that from happening, if you wanted to prevent that establishment choice from taking that u. S. Senate seat, how would you do it . Well, twostep process. The first step would be to keep him below 50 in the primary. Because this was an open seat and because it was a safe republican seat, every republican and their mother was running for this seat in that primary. There were nine people in the republican primary for that senate seat in 2012. So the first step was actually kind of an easy one mathematically speaking with nine people in the race, that means everybodys splitting the vote at least a little bit. If you want to keep him from getting to a runoff, step one for stopping David Dewhurst from getting that seat is just to keep him below 50 in that primary. You dont have to beat him. You can still come in first, but he has to be below 50 so that hell be forced into a runoff. All right . David dewhurst is the most establishment candidate running. The conservative sort of insurgent candidates who were running against him wanted what conservatives always want in a situation like this. They wanted as low a turnout as possible. The smaller the turnout, the more conservative the election results. Its true in texas. Its true everywhere. Had that primary been on a huge day like super tuesday, had it stayed on super tuesday as texas initially intended in 2012, that probably would have meant a giant voter turnout. Super tuesday in texas, that would have been great for David Dewhurst, bad for all the conservatives trying to topple him. Even if they picked the first date they delayed it to, april 3rd, that still would have been pretty good turnout. At least at that point when people are turning out to vote for mitt romney or not mitt romney, there were still technically some not mitt romneys in the president ial race, texas may still have had some conceivable impact who the Republican Party was going to nominate for president. April 3rd that would have drawn some people to the polls. If youre one of these unsir jept republicans running against David Dewhurst you really needed a day on which nobody was going to vote. You needed the smallest possible voter turnout. You needed a terrible day for an election. And thats what they got. When they got their primary on may 29th. I mean, at that point, the Republican Party already overtly had their president ial nominee. There was no reason to turn out to vote for the president ial primary. There was literally nothing else going on in National Politics that day. The may 29th primary, if you look at it in context, it was, i think, four days before the democratic caucuses in the virgin islands, right, so maybe there would be some momentum for that. Yeah, right. If you were looking for a nothing day, if you were looking for a low, low, low, low turnout, nointerest election, so you could have the smallest electorate possible, so you could have the most conservative result possible, so you could knock off a guy like David Dewhurst, may 29ths that was going to be perfect and it worked. There were nine people in the running. This is a state with more than 13 million registered voters at the time. Less than 1. 5 Million People turned out to vote that day. David dewhurst did not get 50 in the runoff. That meant he had to go to a runoff against his top finishing challenger so it was just oneonone. And, again, in that oneonone runoff, the same principle would apply. David dewhurst is the establishment candidate. Hes the more wellknown guy. You get lowinformed, lowengaged voters turning out in big numbers, hell probably win. On the other hand, if you get a tiny electorate, smaller electorate, the fewer the people turn out, its going to be for t establishment, household name guy, already holding statewide office, all right, its going to be harder for him. The bigger the turnout, the more likely David Dewhurst is going to win. The smaller the turnout, the better it is for his conservative challenger. So if youre his conservative challenger, youre waiting to find out what the runoff date is going to be, youre hoping for something super obscure. Could we possibly have this on the 45th of june . Basically, i mean, youre hoping nr a day when, like, nobodys ever voted in the history of voting. Youre hoping for a day when you have to study to even know if theres something going on that you could conceivably vote in. In your wildest dreams, you might hope for a day like july 31st. Okay. Its the dead of summer in texas, 93 degrees that day. Absolutely nothing going on. The only thing in the news at that time was the summer olympics in london and it had already started and we were already sort of into the boring part. And in that little Runoff Election which nobody noticed, great news for the guy trying to knock off David Dewhurst, nobody turned out to vote. Political interest tonight, the gop nomination for u. S. Senate. Our political reporter josh hinkel joins us live. This is a close one to watch for everybody, but especially republicans. Reporter thats right. Its pretty dead here right now, but rest assured republicans will be packing this space later on to watch those runoff results roll in. Not really a question about if a republican will win this november, but it is a question of what kind of republican will win. On one side of this, u. S. Senate gop race, you got Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, he faces a major threat from former texas solicitor general ted cruz. The biggest challenge has been getting people to the polls in the dead of summer. The turnout in that dead of summer Runoff Election dropped another 23 from what had been the terrible turnout in the invisible primary that led to that runoff. Nobody turned out. And the results of that, the reason that ends up being of national, if not International Importance today in 2016, is because in the end, that process that i just explained, that was the process by which we effectively got a new u. S. Senator from one of the largest states in the union. Thanks to incredibly fur tutous timing that gave him an almost unbelievably tiny electorate, thats how he got a u. S. Senate seat from this giant state with fewer voters than you have in your average Congressional District. The people who show up and vote in a runoff, particularly a runoff in the middle of the summer on july 31st are the most passionate, the most motivated primary voters. And he knew it. Thank god there really werent that many super passionate, super motivated voters who knew to turn out that july 31st, 2012. With that tiny electorate basically a Million People turning out in total, ted cruz effectively got elected to his u. S. Senate seat. He got 630,000 votes. Your average Congressional District has over 700,000 population. But that little tiny election, 600,000 votes, thats how he became u. S. Senator ted cruz. After that weird primary in may, bizarre runoff in july. He did in november have to run in a general election, but honestly in texas, that doesnt really count. No democrat has won statewide office of any kind in texas in 22 yeayears. No democrat has been elected to the congress in texas in 28 years. Even though there would be a democrat technically running for the senate seat, these are the kinds of headlines you saw in texas. U. S. Senate race a goponly battle. That one race, 600,000 people voting for him in total, i got to tell you, thats the entire electoral history of ted cruz. Thats the only election hes ever won. Which raises an interesting question as to how well hes ever really been tested in an electoral way. I mean, he did beat David Dewhurst that one time in the heat of the summer in 93degree day on july 31st. But thats it. Thats how he got to be who he is. And now as he gets this close to the republican nomination for president of the United States, this is the part of the game when republicans are starting to wonder whether they like him or not. Starting to wonder, has this guy really been vetted . Has this guy really been thoroughly tested as he tries to ascend to the biggest electoral contest of all as the standard bearer of the Republican Party in a National President ial election . Before you tell me barack obama was also a firstterm senator when he ran for president and he did fine, theres come on, more to it than that. Barack obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 96, reelected to the senate in 98. 2000, he ran in a democratic primary for congressional seat and he lost which is good experience in itself. He got clobbered 21 by the incumbent congressman. He was then reelected to his state senate seat in 2002. In 2004, he decided to run in the democratic primary for a u. S. Senate seat. There were seven candidates in that race and he won. And then, yes, ultimately he walked in an easy general election contest against alan keyes of all people that november, but by the time he got to that easy peezy race against alan keyes to get into the united senate, its not like barack obama had never run for anything before. Ted cruz has never run for anything before. Ted cruz to become a u. S. Senator, hes only ever run in that one election. And to win it, honestly, he counted on the fact that almost nobody showed up. I mean, had texas kept their primary on super tuesday that year, it would not have changed who got the Republican Partys president ial nomination in 2012, right, but it would almost certainly have changed who would be in the running for the republican president ial nomination this year in 2016. Because that accident of timing, that very political calendar that brought us the lucky story of ted cruzs political career so far, the microturnout in the weird dead of summer primary and runoff, thats how we got ted cruz. And now as we pass halftime in this years republican president ial primary process, honestly, do you believe were only at halftime . Its been count of the days, 6 5 days since the first contest in the iowa caucuses. Its 6 2 days until the last contests on june 7th in california and new jersey and all those places. Were at halftime. At this halftime mark thus far, there has not been a lot of sustained National Media attention on who ted cruz is or how we got him in the u. S. Senate or what else he has ever done in his life before he became a very controversial somewhat highprofile firstterm senator and now a possible republican president ial nominee. But ted cruzs political ascent is very unorthodox. Before this president ial campaign, he only ever competed in one competitive electoral contest and it was one where it was absolutely critical that there was an incredibly and abnormally small turnout. I mean, significantly more people voted in some bigcity elections for mayor last year than voted for ted cruz in the election that got him his senate seat. And so now after wisconsin last night, that crunching, that creeking, that shrieking of metal sound that you hear, thats the giant battleship of the american National Media turning its attention to whos this guy, ted cruz . I mean, its not that his past is unknowable or somehow hidden. The honest truth is as far as i can tell nobody in the National Media has much focused on telling the backstory of how we got ted cruz because before now it was absolutely inconceivable somebody like ted cruz could be viable as a possible nominee for the Republican Party. Now that he has won his first largestate primary outside of h home state of texas in the president ial race, he got his first win in wisconsin last night, you can hear the googling and lexusnexus searching starting up on him. With the Republican Party looks like it might seriously consider giving ted cruz the nomination, you should expect to learn quickly a lot more about ted cruzs past because now everybody is going to be trying to figure out who he is. I think theres a lot of substantive reporting to be done there because he has had sort of a strange rise to power. Honestly, theres also a lot of junk out there about him. Like todays National Enquirer running their second big ted cruz story today which has no sourcing, it makes no specific allegations, it has no quotes but it sure sounds salacious and its on the front page of the National Enquirer. More on that later. But as we start this second half of the president ial nominaing process, wisconsins results last night does sort of make us feel like were in a different place. Ted cruz seems like a potentially viable contender for the first time. John kasich on the other hand does not. Not only did john kasich come in a distant third place last night in wisconsin, he came in third place by a lot in every Congressional District in the state last night. He came in third place in every county in the state last night. The next states on the electoral map are supposed to be favorable for a john kasichlike candidate. New york, connecticut, delaware, maryland, pennsylvania, these kind of places. But if he was going to perform in those kinds of states, he probably would have performed at least a little last night in wisconsin and frankly john kasich tanked last night in wisconsin. As for the overall frontrunner, i think one of the underappreciated facts about donald trump in his secondplace finish last night in wisconsin is it was foretold a little bit by him losing his mojo in terms of his campaign rallies. The night before the wi we primary, donald trump held what was expected to be a large event at a theater in milwaukee that seats about 7,000 people. He ended up turning out more like 2,500 people. There was no line to get in. This was not a security problem. There were lots of empty seats inside. Some parts of the theater, there were more reporters than supporters. Thousands of empty seats. Was that just a bad sign for donald trump in wisconsin . Was that a sign that things are pooping out for him more broadly . Heres your latest evidence from tonight. Donald trump rallying tonight in bethpage, long island. This is at a venue that holds 10,000 people. These were the crowds that were waiting to get into that venue today. The crowd estimate in terms of the number of people who turned up tonight is this venue is at capacity, its full. Did i mention it seats 10,000 . I mean, tonight if long island is any indication, it sort of looks like whatever donald trump did not have in wisconsin, hes got it back in new york. Enough people at that donald trump event in long island to elect ted