Liese, Maureen, Teddy and Leonard LaBiche drove from Dallas to be near the front of the line.

“I’m an avid supporter for Cruz,” said Liese LaBiche. “He is the only one who will protect the Constitution.”

Carol Fousel of Tulsa said she has been a Cruz fan since 2012, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas.

“I like him because he does what he says he’ll do,” she said.

Glenn Beck

Cruz events differ from most other political rallies in Tulsa this season in that he typically has one or more “warm-up acts” before he takes the stage.

Sunday, Cruz had several, including conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

Beck spoke for more than 20 minutes, during which he laid down a populist track not — by his own admission — terribly different from some of the things Democrat Bernie Sanders said Wednesday night in Tulsa.

“Bernie Sanders has actually made a good diagnosis of what the problem is,” Beck said. “In every speech he says, ‘We’re a nation that understands fairness. We’re a country built on fairness.’”