So if Trump wants to keep his promise and show Texas is still deep red, he’ll need to fill a stadium with 100,000-plus seats. If not, expect a lot of shots of empty seats, or graphs comparing whatever small facility he manages to fill. (He’s very sensitive about crowd size, you know.) That sort of mishap is only one of the problems that might afflict a Trump-Cruz rally.

Trump might insult the recently deceased Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). However, in Texas, they consider POWs who underwent torture to be heroes.

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Trump might brag about his zero-tolerance policy. That might not sit well with Texans, who according to a June poll oppose the administration’s separation of families at the border by an overwhelming margin. (“Overall, 28 percent of Texas voters support the practice — 16 percent strongly so — while 57 percent oppose it — 44 percent strongly so.”)

Trump could thump his chest about rescinding the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals. Then again, a federal judge in Texas refused to allow the administration to suspend DACA. Moreover, past polling shows that about 60 percent of Texans support extending DACA.

Trump’s presence might give local media the excuse to run all those clips of Trump calling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted,” or of Cruz calling Trump a “pathological liar.”

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Trump also might let the cat out of the bag, telling voters that a new Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh would reverse Roe v. Wade. Because Cruz opposes abortions in the case of rape, Cruz’s opponent Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) would be able to remind voters that the Trump-Cruz formula would have pregnant rape victims driving hundreds of miles to obtain a legal abortion.

In addition, Trump might tout his trade war. That’s a problem in Texas. “Tens of billions of dollars of goods are traded between China and Texas each year. Texas imported over $42 billion in goods from the country in 2017, second only to Mexico,” the Texas Tribune reported in July. “It exported about $16 billion in goods to China, placing it behind only Mexico and Canada.” Moreover: “Cotton is the state’s 10th largest export. Nearly half of the U.S. cotton exported to China comes from Texas. Soy is a smaller market for Texas, but China is the state’s largest international soy customer. Texas exports about $157 million worth of corn a year, making it the 13th largest exporter of the crop in the country, though U.S. corn exports to China have dropped precipitously over the past few years due to increased regulations on the Chinese side.” You get the idea.

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Trump could boast about denying federal workers a raise. However, according to the Labor Department, as of June 2017 there were 199,760 federal employees in the state. When they hear Trump boast about indexing capital gains, they might get really mad. As the Tax Policy Center pointed out, “The 3 percent of returns with [adjusted gross income] over $200,000 reported 31 percent of AGI and 83 percent of capital gains; the 0.3 percent with AGI over $1,000,000 reported 15 percent of AGI and 61 percent of capital gains.” Cruz could then have to explain how he can be for the “little guy.”

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Finally, Trump might brag about wanting to repeal Obamacare and refusing to defend the protection for people with preexisting conditions. It’s estimated that 27 percent of Texans under 65 — more than 4.5 million people — have preexisting conditions. Good luck explaining that one.