Texas Senator Ted Cruz has won the latest 2016 presidential straw poll at a conservative summit in Louisiana.

Cruz took 30 percent of the vote at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans. He edged out conservative speaker and author Ben Carson, who did not speak at the conference.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Rick Perry played to 1,500 conservative activists. On this platform, Ted Cruz emerged as the favorite among the two by winning the conference’s presidential straw poll.

Cruz has risen as a hero of movement conservatives, while Perry has succeeded in repairing some of the damage done by his dismal performance in the last presidential contest.

Cruz was just back from tours of Israel, Poland and Ukraine, where he met foreign leaders and talked of national security issues, while Perry had come from Iowa, the third trip this year to the state with the first presidential contest. Last week, he met a contingent of 13 conservative leaders from New Hampshire in Austin.

Cruz promised delegates to continue his uncompromising approach on Capitol Hill. He said he would draw his strength not from the Senate but from movement conservatives.

Regardless of their national ambitions, Cruz dismissed talk of any intrastate rivalry between him and Perry.

“I am a big fan of Governor Perry’s,” said Cruz.

Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak said that Cruz and Perry probably don’t see each other as their main rivals to the presidency.

Perry is running as a long-time executive who has managed a state with the best economy in the nation and Cruz is leading a conservative movement.

Cruz will still need to show voters he’s ready, with limited experience, to be president, and Perry will need to convince supporters that he won’t falter at important times, Mackowiak said.