Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer? Maybe, Say 38 Percent of Florida Voters
Public Policy Polling released a new poll of prospective Florida voters Thursday night. The results of the first survey since the state’s former governor, Jeb Bush, dropped out of the race are mostly in line with previous findings: Donald Trump maintains his stubby-fingered stranglehold on the Republican field, earning the support of 45 percent of voters. Marco Rubio, whose home-state approval pollsters say has “cratered,” gets 25 percent. Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Ben Carson bring up the rear with ten, eight and five percent, respectively. No big surprises there.
More interestingly, there seems to be a robust Sunshine State debate over whether Ted Cruz is the infamous Zodiac Killer. Asked, point blank, “Do you think Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer, or not?” ten percent of voters said they think he is, and 28 percent said they were not sure. About two-thirds of voters expressed confidence that the Texas senator is not the serial killer who terrorized Northern California in the Sixties and Seventies, killing as many as 37 people.
Floridians aren’t alone in their confusion on this topic; one of the top search terms associated with the phrase “Is Ted Cruz…” is “Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer?” Interest spiked in February of this year, but Twitter users have been demanding answers since speculation began in 2013.
Despite calls to put the rumors to bed once and for all, Cruz has not bothered to deny or even acknowledge them — perhaps because he was born in 1970, two years after the Zodiac began his killing spree.
The rest of the poll’s findings are pretty dismal for the anti-Trump contingent of the GOP. Even if the bottom three candidates drop out of the race, the survey finds the party’s anointed one, Marco Rubio, would be shellacked in a head-to-head race with the Apprentice star, earning just 38 percent of the vote to Trump’s 52. More Floridians think Rubio should drop out of the race (44 percent) than think he should stay in (40 percent). Party leaders can’t be pleased with results that show either Democratic candidate would handily beat every Republican except Trump — who, according to this poll, at least, would best Clinton by two points and Sanders by three in Florida if the election were held today.