Mark Cuban Beats Donald Trump in Texas, New Poll Says

Updated Dec. 30 with emailed comments from Mark Cuban.

If he runs for president, and if he runs as a Democrat and if Donald Trump is his opponent, Mark Cuban might win Texas, a new poll says. The survey, conducted by Public Policy Polling for Business Insider, shows Mavs owner Cuban, a real billionaire, with a 47 percent to 44 percent lead over Trump, a maybe billionaire.

PPP's poll assumed Cuban would be running as a Democrat, which seems a little odd considering he's a die-hard worshipper of Ayn Rand, the late, googly eyed siren in every libertarian boy's spank bank. He even named his 288-foot yacht Fountainhead after one of Rand's novels. Rand's objectivist philosophy rejected altruism in favor of strict laissez-faire capitalism. Update: In an email, Cuban tells us that, while he did "love her books," he isn't a die-hard supporter of Ayn Rand. "As a movement it’s not my style," Cuban says. As for the boat, Cuban says that it isn't his, despite the hundreds of confused media reports to the contrary.

So Cuban running as a Democrat would make about as much sense as an ass-grabbing libertine with anger issues running as a conservative Republican with evangelical support. Oh, and both Cuban and Trump starred in reality TV shows.

In the words of the late Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein, "IT ...  COULD ... WORK!"

When dropping what are surely not publicity-seeking hints that he might run against Trump in 2020, Cuban hasn't said if he'd attempt a primary challenge to Trump, run as an independent or take on what's sure to be a deep field of Democratic contenders.

Then there's the matter of whether Cuban would be willing to ditch his plaything, the Mavericks, for the pent-up life guaranteed the president. Cuban also doesn't play golf, which, if Trump is any guide, is an essential part of fulfilling one's presidential duties.

Cuban doesn't seem to be taking the poll too seriously. The result, he told Business Insider in an email, “just proves people are bored :).”

And a little scared, too.