Are these states big enough for two presidential candidates?

In August 2011, Cruz enthusiastically endorsed Perry for president at the annual meeting of RedState.com, a conservative website. “He is a conservative, in his heart, in his gut,” he told an audience of cheering activists. “My prediction is Rick Perry will win the nomination.” Three years later, his assessment had evolved. At this year’s Red State gathering, Cruz presented himself as a lone conservative fighter taking on Washington and Perry stressed his executive leadership.

“Ask me in eight years if Senator Cruz has made an impact on the state,” Perry told reporters in Washington last June.

Cruz, who crushed Perry by almost a four-to-one margin in a 2016 straw poll at the Texas Republican convention last year, fired back during an appearance in Iowa, the state that traditionally holds the party’s first presidential nominating contest. “Victory number four—five?” Cruz said in August, making a reference to the infamous gaffe that effectively ended Perry’s 2012 presidential bid when he couldn’t remember the names of all the federal departments he planned to obliterate. “I could say ‘oops,’ but that would make news,” Cruz added.

In Wisconsin the competition is more genteel, but also more personal.