It’s hard to find a stronger supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz than Dan Patrick, but the Texas lieutenant governor does not hesitate to say who should be president if his man falls short: Donald Trump.

On “The Laura Ingraham Show” on Thursday, Patrick issued a warning to the Never-Trump forces within the GOP who are searching for any available avenue to take out the front-runner.

“You’re undermining our party,” he said. “You’re undermining our country … I will be all-in for [Trump] as much as I am for Ted if he is the nominee, but I’m all-in for Ted to be the nominee. We can’t lose this.”

That is not to say that Patrick thinks it would be illegitimate for Cruz to emerge from a contested convention. He said he doubts that either Trump or Cruz will amass the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination by the end of the primary season on June 7. From there, the delegates would decide the nominee at the Republican National Convention in July.

Patrick said attempts by Republican Party operatives to somehow swing the nomination to Gov. John Kasich or perhaps even a dark-horse candidate who is not running would be the beginning of the end of the party. Plus, he added, the delegates never would allow it.

However, Patrick added, Cruz is working hard to make sure he will be the top choice of delegates once they are freed from their commitment to vote for the candidate to whom they are bound by primary and caucus results. The rules vary state by state, but delegates are free to vote their conscience at some point after a first ballot.

Unlike the old days, those delegates are not hand-picked by party leaders. In most states, they are elected at state conventions.

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“Ted is working to be sure he gets his loyalists at the convention to be nominated to go to the national convention in Cleveland,” Patrick said. “What’s happening now is, I don’t think Donald Trump has any ground game. I don’t even think his team understands how the delegate process works.”

It sets up a scenario in which Cruz might, on a second ballot, capture not only delegates committed to also-ran candidates but perhaps even some who were pledged to Trump on the first ballot.

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Patrick said Texas has had great success stopping smuggling across the Mexican border and reducing crime in border towns through stepped-up state enforcement efforts. But he said the states need a committed federal partner to achieve complete success. It is one of the reasons the Establishment has become a paper tiger, he said.

“It just underscores how out of touch most of the Republicans in Washington are from what is happening on Main Street in America,” he said. “There is no Establishment left. There are no voters who care what Lindsey Graham thinks or Jeb Bush or others.”