During his Ironman 21-hour speech, Sen. Ted Cruz read excerpts from Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged, name-dropped libertarians at least six times, and yielded to Sen. Rand Paul, who invoked Frederic Bastiats What is Seen and Unseen, a favorite among libertarians.

Ted Cruz, who retained remarkable composure over the long night, seems in all things deliberate. Political leaders seem to have become more comfortable talking about libertarians, even identifying themselves as such. Libertarians may have reached a tipping point within the Republican Party.

Last week, a FreedomWorks study on public opinion found that libertarian views within the Republican Party are at the highest point in a decade, today representing 41 percent of Republican voters. This is a strong claim. Its worth explaining the methodology behind the study, as libertarian views gain more and more attention in the press.

As David Boaz and I have noted in our two studies on the Libertarian Vote, and ebook with Emily Ekins, Gallup has tracked libertarian beliefs since 1993 using a combination of two questions on the role of government:

Gallup defines libertarians as those who think government is doing too many things and should not promote traditional values.

In the chart below, Gallup data show a 19 percentage point increase in libertarian views among Republicans and Republican leaning independents in the decade between 2002 and 2012. In 2002, libertarians represented 15 percent of Republicans; in 2012, 34 percent.

Using American National Election Studies (ANES) data, a stalwart in political science, we duplicated Gallups methodology, using two questions on the role of government:

We define libertarians as those who say the less government the better and who agree we should be tolerant of moral standards different from our own.

In the chart below, ANES data show a nine percentage point increase in libertarian views among Republicans and Republican leaning independents between 2000 and 2012. In 2000, libertarians represented 26 percent of Republicans; in 2012, 35 percent.

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Ted Cruz Speech Nods to Increasing Libertarian Views within Republican Party