Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) may be vulnerable to a primary challenger in 2018 and the only man who can beat him –according to a recent poll– is former Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
The survey of Republican primary voters by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling shows that in a head-to-head matchup, Cruz would lose to Perry 46 percent to 37 percent.
The poll comes roughly a month after Cruz took a gamble at the 2016 Republican convention and refused to endorse presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The poll looked at Cruz’s other potential primary challengers, but found no one else was able to beat the freshman senator. In a race against Rep. Michael McCaul, Cruz led by 32 points, and in a contest against Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, he had a 22-point lead.
As the Texas Tribune pointed out in its analysis of the poll, Cruz’s popularity back home has taken a hit after his RNC speech. The poll found that among likely voters, 48 percent did not approve of the job he was doing while 37 percent said they did approve.
PPP surveyed 944 likely voters from Aug. 12 -14. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
