The Ticket was a weekly look at presidential politics from a Texas perspective in the leadup to the 2016 election. It included veteran political reporters Jay Root of The Texas Tribune and Ben Philpott of KUT News. Find it on SoundCloud and Stitcher. More in this series

This week on The Ticket podcast: The Tribune’s Jay Root and KUT’s Ben Philpott discuss one of the only GOP presidential candidates who’s been able to survive the Summer of Trump: Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.

While Cruz’s poll numbers have held steady, he’s set himself up as an alternative to Trump if or when the current GOP frontrunner flames out.

And to better understand how Cruz went from unknown to U.S. Senator, they talk to JoAnn Fleming, head of Grassroots America We the People, about his rise from obscurity to Tea Party darling.

Like The Ticket podcast? Be sure to subscribe on iTunes. Find us on SoundCloud and Stitcher.

Ben Philpott is a senior reporter for KUT-FM, Austin’s National Public Radio affiliate. He has been covering state politics and dozens of other topics for the station since 2002, during which time he...

Jay Root is an award-winning journalist who reported for the Tribune from 2011 to 2020. He covered the dramatic collapse of Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign and went on to write an ebook...