2016 Election

[Ryan Ruck]

Conservative Rep. Steve King Endorses Texas Sen. Ted Cruz For President

November 16, 2015

A conservative Iowa congressman has endorsed Ted Cruz for president, saying the senator from Texas answers his prayers.

Republican congressman Steve King, an influential conservative in the leadoff caucus state, said in a news conference Monday that Cruz would appeal to a wide range of Republicans and praised his efforts to fight President Barack Obama's health care law and defend religious liberty.

"I do believe Ted Cruz is the full package, the constitutional conservative that can restore the soul of America," said King, who represents western and northern Iowa.

Cruz, who was campaigning in South Carolina Monday, tweeted that he was "beyond honored" by King's endorsement.

An outspoken opponent of immigration reform, King also said he liked Cruz's immigration proposals, which include dramatically increasing deportations, adding hundreds of miles to the wall on the Mexican border and reversing every immigration order signed by President Barack Obama, including one that defers enforcement for many children of immigrants in the country illegally.

King said he was not concerned by the fact that during the immigration debate two years ago Cruz introduced amendments to double the cap on legal immigration and increase the number of high-skilled immigrant visas by 500 percent. King called these "strategic amendments" to expose political flaws in the process. He said he hoped his endorsement would reinforce Cruz's immigration positions.

"I hope that this endorsement does add clarity to Ted Cruz's position on immigration and any of the competitors that are blurring his position on immigration," King said.

Cruz, the son of a Cuban immigrant, last week vowed to suspend a program that gives work visas to highly skilled immigrants, a reversal of his past position. He has also rejected comments from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio that the two senators hold similar stances on immigration. Rubio has said that Cruz, like him, supported a legal status for those in the country illegally.

King also says Cruz knows Washington, in contrast to Republican outsiders Donald Trump and Ben Carson, who are leading the GOP nomination fight. Cruz has campaigned heavily in Iowa and will be in the state on Friday.

[Ryan Ruck]

The Pundits Have It All Wrong. Ted Cruz Is a Real Threat For the Nomination

November 12, 2015

Ted Cruz gets no respect. At least no respect in keeping with the impressiveness of the campaign he’s built and his increasing odds of winning the Republican nomination.

The press and the political class are beginning to catch on to Cruz’s strength, and there has been more talk of a prospective Cruz-Marco Rubio race over the past two weeks, but his coverage and his buzz have been lagging indicators — and they are still lagging.

Consider the POLITICO survey of Republican insiders in the early nominating contests. After Tuesday night’s GOP debate in Milwaukee, it had as many respondents saying Cruz won (6 percent) as Ben Carson and John Kasich (6 percent each). This is an extraordinary finding, given that Kasich showed up for the debate wearing a suicide vest.

Cruz tends to be an afterthought in the Sunday show chatter, and on TV generally.

The Atlantic tracks candidate mentions on cable TV. Over the past 100 days, Cruz ranks ninth among all presidential candidates from both parties, well behind Chris Christie and just above Kasich. Christie may begin to get some traction, but he was relegated to the undercard debate in Milwaukee and is looking to throw a Hail Mary in New Hampshire. Kasich wants to complete the same unlikely pass in the same place.

Maybe the mentions of Cruz have picked up lately? No. Over about the past 30 days, he’s still ninth, just ahead of that juggernaut Martin O’Malley.

Well, Cruz is still pretty low in the polls, and coverage tends to follow the polling. Maybe that’s it? No. A Washington Post analysis specifically looked at the amount of cable TV coverage devoted to each candidate compared with his or her position in the polls. It found that Cruz got 60 percent less coverage than you’d otherwise expect from July through October.

From October to November, as the seriousness of his campaign has become even more evident, the disparity has gotten worse. According to the Post, “He’s on the air 70 percent less than his polling would suggest, even as he’s climbed past [Jeb] Bush and into fourth place in the race.”

Donald Trump, as you might expect, gets more coverage than warranted by his polling. So does Bush. It’s as though the media still haven’t been able to adjust the level of coverage of the former Florida governor to account for their erroneous initial presumption that he’d probably be the nominee.

The indications of the strength of Cruz’s operation and the shrewdness of his positioning are mounting.

He had more cash on hand at the end of the third quarter than any other Republican.

He has major super PAC backing.

He assessed the anti-establishment mood in the party more accurately than any of the other traditional Republican candidates.

He reacted to the rise of Trump very deftly for his purposes.

He has seen a couple of key potential competitors, Scott Walker and Rand Paul, either hit a wall or badly underperform.

He has a discernible ideological and geographic base.

He has, relatedly, a path to the nomination that is simple and intuitive (win Iowa, consolidate the right and beat an establishment that might be too fractured and unpopular to prevail this time).

He lights up pretty much every conservative audience he addresses.

He is an excellent debater, and he simply doesn’t make tactical or rhetorical mistakes.

And yet, while many of these qualities are duly noted, he doesn’t really get his due. Why? For a number of reasons.

The political press corps made up its mind about him — too divisive — as soon as he showed up in Washington, and has never entirely gotten over its dismissive treatment of his campaign.

Cruz has never mounted a John McCain-style charm offensive with reporters, most of whom, it is safe to say, find him personally off-putting. And he is hated with a burning passion by his party’s own elite.

The appeal of Cruz’s conservative populism is lost on most reporters and political insiders, who have a natural reflex to roll their eyes at the message and the messenger.

Cruz is not as interesting as Trump and Carson, and he doesn’t feature in any intrapersonal drama like the Bush-Rubio mentor-mentee showdown. (The rise of Trump also happened to roughly coincide with Cruz’s second-quarter fundraising report, dampening the impact of what was a herald of the robust state of his campaign.)

Finally, he is graded on a bit of a curve. He routinely performs so well at Republican cattle calls that his standing ovations tend to get discounted.

Cruz is hardly a cinch. Trump and especially Carson are significant obstacles for him in Iowa. His theory that he will inherit Trump and Carson’s support if the outsiders deflate is too simplistic since both Trump and Carson have appeal across the ideological spectrum of the GOP. So is his schematic of the Republican race as coming down to two candidates, one representing the conservatives (him) and someone representing the moderates.

Nonetheless, it should be obvious to any fair observer that Cruz is a serious threat for the nomination. Be warned, and get over it.

[American Patriot]

Good Job Ryan.

Keep spreadin' the word.

I like Trump. But because he's irreverent. We need Cruz.

No, we need Reagan.

Wish he were here.

I could do a good imitation, but I don't want to be president.

In fact, I think many here could do such an imitation. But no one would vote for any of us. lol

We're too Radical for the world. LMAO.

[Ryan Ruck]

Carson Loses His Hold On Iowa’s Conservatives

Worried about security, these voters are shifting toward Ted Cruz

November 21, 2015

Hours after terrorists attacked a hotel in Mali and a week after Islamic State fighters struck Paris, Ted Cruz took the floor here to deliver a harsh critique of President Obama’s Middle East posture and pledge a hardline approach to Syrian Muslim refugees.

It was exactly what this crowd of mostly conservative Christians wanted – and an ominous sign for Iowa’s weakened frontrunner, Ben Carson.

Across the state and at a major gathering of politically active evangelicals on Friday night, foreign policy was top-of-mind for the voters and state lawmakers once considered natural constituents for Carson. But after a week of confused comments from the former neurosurgeon and a dismissive critique by his own advisors, Iowans are now consistently voicing doubt about Carson’s credentials to be commander-in-chief.

Indeed, they said the terrorist attacks have reordered the candidates in their mind, lifting Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio and, for many, making Carson an afterthought.

“He’s a great guy, he’s fun to listen to, but I didn’t hear anything substantive,” said Alan Hilgerson, a Des Moines-based physician who said national security is an "extremely high” priority for him as he considers the 2016 contenders vying for Iowa. Of Carson, he continued, “I don’t know that I’d want him as my president.”

Worse yet for Carson, at the Family Leader Forum organized by social-conservative icon Bob Vander Plaats, voters said the more they thought about Carson’s foreign policy credentials, the less comfortable they were with him.

Marilu Erdahl – who drove two-and-a-half hours in the snow to see the candidates speak, making her exactly the kind of Republican the candidates count on during the wintry caucuses – said she entered the event torn between Cruz and Carson. But as she talked through the importance of national defense, she decided on Cruz. “He has experience, he’s shown what he can do,” she said of Cruz. “With the state of affairs we’re in right now, I think it is very important. It’s vital…We need someone who knows the ropes, who’s not the establishment but who doesn’t need on-the-job training.”

She went on: “I guess I’ve maybe made up my mind.”

Carson and Cruz have been racing toward this collision in Iowa for weeks. Both have been courting the same Christian conservative community that makes up a crucial bloc of the state’s caucus electorate. But the turning point came when security and foreign policy were forced to the top of the GOP agenda by the terrorist attacks.

Carson landed here fresh off a string of fumbles that included struggling to name countries he’d ask to join a coalition to fight the group known as ISIS or ISIL and smarting from a New York Times story the featured one of his own foreign policy advisers saying the candidate was struggling to grasp key issues.

The momentum, according to activists, state lawmakers and other voters here, now appears to be with Cruz. And he seems to know it.

“On the Republican side, I think the Paris attacks infuse a greater seriousness to the search for who is prepared to be commander-in-chief, who has the experience, who has the judgment, who has the understanding of the very real and growing threats facing America,” Ted Cruz told POLITICO in an interview in Iowa.

“The overlay of the Paris attacks, even today, the horrific attack in Mali, makes clear that we need a president who’s prepared on Day 1 to understand the nature of the threats facing America and to lead this country in standing up to these threats and defending our citizens from the growing menace of radical Islamic terrorism,” he said on the sidelines of the Family Leader event.

Influential Iowa vote-broker Steve King, who endorsed Cruz last week, pointed to a new online NBC poll that showed Carson dropping, and said he attributed that slip to renewed interest in national security and Carson’s struggles with the issue. Polls conducted by more traditional methods will provide a fuller picture in coming weeks.

“They’ll often say, all politics are local, politics are domestic, domestic politics will elect the next president. I’m not sure that’s right. Not when you see the pictures of the bodies in places like Paris and around the world, Beirut, now Mali today,” King said. “When we see that, and we’re almost guaranteed that’s going to continue until we defeat [terrorists], that makes a candidate that’s strong on foreign policy, strong on national defense…that makes that candidate stronger.”

“Being [from] outside the Beltway doesn’t help with that. Being inside the Beltway, as long as you’re not ruled by that, I think does help,” King said.

In interviews with voters and activists at stops in conservative western Iowa and then at the presidential forum in Des Moines, it was clear they do not see Carson as equally up to the challenge. In fact, the characteristics once cited by voters here as boosting Carson – his soft-spoken nature and disinterest in attacking his competition, for example -- are now seen as problematic.

“Carson, he’s a wonderful guy, but we like Cruz better,” said Judy Kirby of Des Moines, who said she is gravely concerned about foreign policy in the wake of several high-profile terrorist attacks. Cruz “seems more knowledgeable, he seems stronger.”

Voters described Carson as “lacking fire in the belly,” as being a nice person but too “soft-spoken,” and said he doesn’t come across as sufficiently tough. That’s in contrast to both Donald Trump, a tough talker who pledges to “bomb the sh** out of” ISIL, and Cruz and Rubio, who have both sought to demonstrate Senate-acquired policy chops.

(I have been saying exactly that since Carson became a contender!)

“It’s probably one of [Carson’s] weakest stances,” said Chris Boley, a business owner who attended the Family Leader event and is now leaning toward Rubio. “That doesn’t mean he can’t get up to speed, but he has some catching up to do…In this day and age, with how important national defense is, with terrorism in the Middle East, you’ve got to be real studied.”

At two campaign stops on Friday, followed by an appearance at a conservative cattle call, Cruz tried to highlight just how “studied” on both terrorism and the refugee crisis. And at each site, King stressed that part of the reason he is backing Cruz is that he trusts the Texas senator to play hardball with world leaders, a qualification that resonated with the hawkish mood of the crowds.

They cheered Cruz’s analysis of the chaos in the Middle East – something he blames on both Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – and his with-us-or-against-us language on ISIL.

“If you join ISIS, you are signing your death warrant,” Cruz pledged.

Voters also embraced Cruz’s concerns about Syrian refugees coming to America, fears shared by many in the audiences.

Cruz said that Syrian refugees—who he conceded are suffering from a “humanitarian crisis” — should be resettled not in the United States but in the Middle East. Cruz said the United States is already spending huge sums to help refugees. Carson also opposes allowing in Syrian refugees, but Cruz has made a legislative push on the effort, a Washington credential he repeatedly points to.

On Friday night, Carson tried to demonstrate national security chops, accusing Obama of tying American troops’ hands, and of being an “armchair quarterback, he is interfering tremendously.” He earned applause for those remarks, and was well-received when more broadly criticizing “political correctness.”

But Cruz, seated next to Carson on stage, quickly and easily upstaged him. Obama, Cruz said, was worse than an armchair quarterback. “The policies he’s advocating are helping the other team.”

The crowd rewarded him with applause and whistles.

[Ryan Ruck]

Looks like the Republicans managed to hand over governorship of Louisiana to the Dems. But, it's not like the Dems really ran a Dem. More of a DINO.

David Vitter Somehow Manages To Lose The Louisiana Governor’s Office

November 22, 2015

Democrat John Bel Edwards took a victory lap last night after winning Louisiana’s gubernatorial race by a wide margin. While things had looked pretty good for Republican Senator David Vitter a couple of months ago, in the end it really wasn’t even close. (New York Times)

With a victory that defied political geography and near universal predictions from just months earlier, a previously little-known Democrat, State Representative John Bel Edwards, soundly defeated United States Senator David Vitter in a runoff election on Saturday to become the next governor of Louisiana.

Mr. Edwards won 56 percent of the vote with virtually all of the ballots counted.

During his concession speech, Vitter shocked some of his supporters by saying that not only would he not be taking over as governor, he would also not be seeking another term in the Senate and would instead retire. So what went so wrong for the GOP down there?

The answer may not be what you think. One part of the equation is that the Democrats found the right guy to run. Edwards’ biography lays it all out. A West Point graduate and Airborne Ranger, Edwards is pro-gun, hawkish and touts his family’s deep religious faith and ties to the church. If you dropped this guy anywhere else in the country he’d be a Republican. Heck.. .he’d be toward the right wing of the party. In short, they found somebody palatable to any Republicans who were dissatisfied with the current leadership and looking for a change.

Vitter on the other hand may have been a flawed candidate to a certain extent, but was probably more a victim of circumstances in this case. It’s true that he had that whole prostitution thing hanging around in his closet which would have made him untenable in any sort of national race. (There’s no quicker way to lose the women’s vote than having a bunch of headlines with the word “hooker” in them following you around.) But back home in Louisiana the people seemed to have largely forgiven him his transgressions. The prostitute scandal broke in 2007 and 2008, but in the 2010 race he won reelection to his Senate seat by a daunting 57-38 margin over Charlie Melancon. He may have been wounded, but he was still a solid contender in his home state.

This time however, while Edwards brought up the hooker problem constantly, it was probably Bobby Jindal who sank Vitter. Jindal is term limited, but it’s doubtful that he could have won another term under current conditions anyway. The Governor’s current approval ratings are rarely as high as the mid-30s and have fallen as low as 27% earlier this year. Voters have been dissatisfied with the results of Jindal’s policies and that’s washing over onto the rest of the party. If Vitter were selling a winning message I’m willing to bet the public would have overlooked any past scandals on his resume, but times have been hard down there and people were just looking for a change.

Is this a long term change? Somehow I doubt it. Until national conditions shift a bit there probably won’t be a major shift in public opinion even with a Democrat in the governor’s mansion. Given one term of that, traditional Republicans will likely come back around next time, assuming the GOP can come up with a qualified candidate who has a good back story for the next run. In the meantime, best of luck to Governor-elect Edwards. You’ve got a pretty big challenge in front of you.

[Ryan Ruck]

Rubio Backer Is Behind New Anti-Ted Cruz Ad

November 24, 2015

The political operative behind the nonprofit that just began attacking Ted Cruz in Iowa is a Marco Rubio backer who served as a co-host of a fundraiser for the Florida senator last week.

Sean Noble is the founder of American Encore, a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which is paying $200,000 to air an ad in Des Moines that accuses Cruz of voting to “weaken national security” and urges him to “stop leading from behind.” Noble said that while he personally is backing Rubio — he served as a co-host of scotch and cigars fundraiser in Arizona last week — his group is not.

American Encore, Noble explained, is instead dedicated to the nomination of a Republican candidate who can win the general election. “There is probably more than one in that regard,” Noble said. "We just don’t think that Cruz is one of them.”

The group previously aired a radio ad in Iowa hitting Rand Paul on a different topic this spring.

The new anti-Cruz ad hits the Texas senator for his support of the USA Freedom Act, which restricted the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone metadata. The spot splices together news coverage and footage from Paris last week, an image of a bomb exploding in a street and accusations that Cruz voted to “weaken America’s ability to identify and hunt down terrorists.”

"He was against intelligence gathering measures when it seemed it like it was convenient for him and his competition was Rand Paul,” Noble said of Cruz. "Now that the landscape has changed he is changing his tune."

Rubio has attacked Cruz for the same vote.

"I see them as indistinguishable,” Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said of the Rubio campaign and the nonprofit. "This is the establishment in full panic mode. They couldn't get their guy Jeb Bush so they settled on his protégé Marco Rubio.”

Noble said the reasoning behind the ad was the GOP experience in 2012 "when we had people who were not electable doing damage” to Mitt Romney, the eventual nominee. "Newt Gingrich was part of the reason Mitt Romney lost the general election and I don’t want that to happen again,” he said.

As for the Rubio fundraiser, Noble said he didn’t speak with Rubio as it was “insanely packed” and he let “people in Arizona who’ve never met” Rubio say hello.

[Ryan Ruck]

Now this is very interesting...

Karl Rove Opens His Rolodex for Ben Carson

November 28, 2015

From Kevin Cirilli and Ben Brody writing at Bloomberg Politics:

Republican strategist Karl Rove helped set up a meeting between top fundraisers for Ben Carson and casino mogul Steve Wynn.

Rove confirmed to Bloomberg Politics that he acted as the go-between for the Carson camp and Wynn, a sometimes business competitor of Donald Trump, the rival Carson has been batting all fall for the Republican nomination.

“I introduced them but I don’t know anything further about that,” said Rove, who added that he did not attend the meeting.

The mastermind of George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and 2004, Rove has not signed on with any of the presidential candidates this year, though he says he has dispensed advice to a number who have asked. Trump’s camp is viewing the effort to help the billionaire real estate mogul’s chief rival as an attack on the front-runner.

“Karl Rove is at the center of the GOP establishment — fearful of what real leadership in Washington D.C. will accomplish,” said Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in a statement when asked about Rove’s role in facilitating the meeting between Carson and Wynn. “Mr. Trump continues to expose the all-talk, no action politicians propped up their dark money super PACs that have failed the American people for far too long.” Rove helped found one of the pioneering dark money groups, Crossroads GPS, which as a non-profit does not have to disclose the identities of its donors.

Read the rest of the story at Bloomberg Politics.

[Ryan Ruck]

Donald Trump did the A*ex J*nes Show today.

Should tell you all you need to know about Trump that he would voluntarily associate with slime like J*nes.

[American Patriot]

The left is a bunch of sacks of lying fucks.'

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journal...lebrating-911/

Trump 100% Vindicated: CBS Reports ‘Swarm’ On Rooftops Celebrating 9/11

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Ty Wright/Getty Images

by John Nolte2 Dec 201521,286

The DC Media has spent the last two weeks attempting to destroy Donald Trump with lies. Outright lies, and they are doing so in order to protect a 14 year-old cover up. Not only have eyewitnesses and contemporaneous reports proven Donald Trump 100% correct about Muslims celebrating 9/11, a just-uncovered local CBS News (WCBS-TV in New York) report completely vindicates Trump’s claim of “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center.
The video below is from a September 16, 2001 news report:
—
—

Just a couple of blocks away from that Jersey City apartment the F.B.I. raided yesterday and had evidence removed, there is another apartment building, one that investigators told me, quote, was swarming with suspects — suspects who I’m told were cheering on the roof when they saw the planes slam into the Trade Center. Police were called to the building by neighbors and found eight men celebrating, six of them tenants in the building.
The F.B.I. and other terrorist task force agencies arrived, and the older investigators on the task force recalled that they had been to this building before, eight years ago, when the first World Trade Center attack led them to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, whose Jersey City mosque lies between the two buildings getting attention today. And the older investigators remember that the suspects that eventually got convicted for the first Trade Center case … lived in the building where these same eight men were celebrating the destruction that they saw from the roof. Calling this a hot address, the task force investigators ordered everyone detained.

“Swarms.”
“Swarms.”
“Swarms.”
ADDED: People are arguing falsely that the fact that only 8 suspects were apprehended contradicts the “swarm” claim. Read it again. An “investigator” told CBS about the “swarm.” The fact that a certain number were brought into custody does not change the fact that there was a “swarm.” The obvious impression is that of the “swarm,” only eight were brought into custody. Eight people do not swarm on all those rooftops. They “gather.” Look at the video of the rooftop and picture “swarming.”
You want to get into semantics about how many people make up a swarm?
But that’s not all.
You have to add up all of the contemporaneous news reports. You are Donald Trump. You are taking in all the news during that awful week. You are told by the media that “swarms” of Muslims in a known terrorist’s neighborhood were seen on rooftops celebrating 9/11. Just two days earlier you have read this in the New York Post:

Here in New York, it was easy to get angry listening to Egyptians, Palestinians and the Arabs of nearby Paterson, N.J., celebrate as they received word of the murderous attack in New York and Washington. But Mayor Giuliani (who has been tireless and magnificent in this crisis) rightly warned New Yorker-ers that is would be wrong to take their anger our on the city’s Arab and Muslim residents. Attacks on Arab-Americans in Paterson or elsewhere are utterly indefensible.

You hear radio news reports about Muslims celebrations.
MTV runs a news report about Muslim celebrations.
From all of those news reports, it is perfectly reasonable and nothing close to lying to put together a picture of “thousands”.
FACT: Donald Trump is now 100% vindicated.
If these celebrations did not occur, the only thing Trump did wrong was to believe the same media that is now calling him a liar — and doing so to cover up the truth about American Muslims celebrating 9/11 and their own covering up of that fact.
Numerous times I’ve suggested Trump exaggerated the “thousands” claim, and for that I apologize.


Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC

[Ryan Ruck]

I won't vote for Trump if he gets the nomination (unless Cruz is his VP pick) but he was indeed mostly right about this. He certainly embellished the "thousands and thousands" part (which is just like him) but I definitely remember some Muslims here in the US celebrating 9/11. That's a day that seared into my memory and I won't forget things about. And that fact is one of them.

[vector7]

America can't afford any anymore Socialist Democrat Administrations like Carter, Clinton and Obama.

The Left now has this country severely divided, nearly bankrupt and very ripe for their Communist revolution.

Frankly, we may be past the point of no return.

It will now take many strong Reagan like terms to work at dismantling what Obama has done to weaken our foundations on so many levels just to get back to where we were before he began fundamentally transforming America in 2009.

[American Patriot]

1) Trump doesn't have a concept of "thousands and thousands" only billions and billions, he and Sagan would have gotten along well.

2) I won't vote for him, but he's got people in an uproar, which I LIKE. Let him choose Cruz, or vice-versa and he gets my vote.

3) It's too late. This country is deteriorating quickly and we'll be at war internally by the spring time.

[vector7]

Titor comes to mind.

[American Patriot]

I'm glad I wasn't the one that mentioned that....

Just sayin'....

[vector7]

[Ryan Ruck]

Jesus, old Jebbers is flat out spamming FNC with ads.

Getting old...

He should just run this as an ad:

[Ryan Ruck]

Cruz Soars to Front of the Pack in Iowa Poll; Trump Support Stays Flat

December 12, 2015

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has surged ahead to become the latest front-runner in the campaign for the Iowa caucuses, dislodging Ben Carson and opening an impressive lead over a stalled Donald Trump, a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows.

The firebrand junior senator from Texas is backed by 31 percent of those likely to attend the Republican caucuses that start the presidential nomination season on Feb. 1. Trump is a distant second at 21 percent, up slightly from 19 percent in October, but below his peak of 23 percent in August.

Cruz's 21-percentage-point jump since October is the largest surge between Iowa Polls recorded in at least the last five presidential caucus campaigns. When first and second choices are combined, he has the support of 51 percent of likely caucus-goers. The senator’s great leap forward comes largely at the expense of Carson, as Iowa’s evangelicals appear to have picked the candidate they want to get behind. The retired neurosurgeon, now barely in third-place, is supported by 13 percent, down from the first-place showing he posted in October, when he was at 28 percent.



For Iowa’s conservative voters, “the coalescing has begun,” said J. Ann Selzer, founder of Selzer & Co., the West Des Moines-based firm that conducted the poll.

The same can’t be said for the voters who describe themselves as part of the Republican establishment, which the poll recorded as 29 percent of the likely electorate. For now, Trump has 23 percent from those who consider themselves Republican establishment voters, followed by Cruz at 22 percent. Senator Marco Rubio and his one time mentor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, are both at 12 percent.

There's no good news in the poll for Bush, who despite his political pedigree as the son and brother of past presidents and a massive campaign war chest, has moved up only slightly since October, to 6 percent from 5 percent, and is in fifth place. The super political action committee supporting Bush has been by far the largest political ad buyer in Iowa, Kantar/CMAG data shows.

Bush's negatives are the highest of any candidate in the field and at an all-time high in the state, with 54 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers viewing him unfavorably. That's up from 43 percent in October. He also recorded his highest level of likely caucus-goers who say they could never support him, 41 percent. "Based on this data, it's hard to keep Bush in the picture," Selzer said.

Cruz’s new front-runner status in Iowa has been accompanied by a jump in his favorability rating, now an all-time high of 73 percent, the highest in the Republican field. That could come as a surprise to members of Washington's establishment, who have shown disdain for him and complained that his three years there have been marked by showmanship, inflexibility and a lack of collegiality. In his campaign autobiography, A Time for Truth, Cruz's opening anecdote recounts him becoming the target of "red-faced name calling" by his Republican Senate colleagues when he wouldn’t go along with a party vote on extending the debt limit.



Cruz dominates yet another gauge the poll takes of candidates' strength, the "Selzer Score," which uses multiple measures to try to assess potential upside in a crowded field. The index looks at first and second choices, as well as whether respondents could ever -- or would never -- support candidates not in their first two choices. (The first choices are given double weight, while “ever support” is given a half weighting.) Using that system, Cruz scores an unprecedented 97.5. He's followed by Trump at 72.5, Carson at 67.5 and Rubio at 62.

The Texan’s rise suggests that Rubio's recent attacks on Cruz for alleged weakness on national security have failed so far to do damage, at least in Iowa. Rubio, the subject of criticism by some Iowa Republians for not spending more time in the state, is treading water: The junior senator from Florida is in fourth place with the support of 10 percent of voters, up just one point from October.

The poll also sets up an intriguing dilemma for Trump, including in the Republican debate Tuesday: The billionaire has sometimes mocked challengers on the basis of their personalities, but doing so against Cruz could prove risky, given the high senator's high favorable rating in Iowa. This weekend, Trump started to attack Cruz for his opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard that supports the corn-based ethanol industry in Iowa.

In a week when he received the endorsement of one of Iowa's most visible evangelical leaders, the poll shows Cruz with support from 45 percent of those who mainly define themselves as evangelical conservatives, more than double what Carson gets. Half of likely Republican caucus-goers in the poll described themselves as "born again" or evangelical Christian, up from 42 percent in the October poll, possibly signaling greater participation from this group.

"He's very conservative and I agree with most of his views on the financial situation of our country and abortion and gay marriage," said Sarah Chappell, 34, a stay-at-home mother from Des Moines who is leaning toward caucusing for Cruz. "He wants to let us make choices, instead of the government being all powerful and making choices for us."

Cruz is also winning nearly half -- 46 percent -- of those who identify as very conservative, as well as 39 percent of those who consider themselves aligned with the Tea Party movement.

A victory in the Iowa caucuses would give Cruz some early-state momentum that could help carry him well beyond the second voting state of New Hampshire, where he isn't nearly as strong.

Unlike some recent Iowa Republican caucus winners, who have foundered because they didn’t have the campaign cash to capitalize on their strong showing in the state where the first ballots are cast, Cruz has plenty of money: His campaign committee had collected $26 million as of Sept. 30 and a family of super-political action committees backing him reported receipts of more than $37 million as of June 30.

With just seven weeks until the caucuses, a third of those likely to participate on the Republican side say their mind is made up. Trump and Cruz supporters are more certain, at 45 percent and 43 percent, respectively.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky are tied for sixth place, with each getting 3 percent. All other candidates recorded 2 percent or less. Paul's score in the Iowa Poll could be enough to knock him from the main debate stage Tuesday in Las Vegas.

In keeping with Iowa tradition, the poll suggests there will be lots of late deciders, so Cruz can't coast. Almost a third say they're likely to still be deciding the week leading up to the caucuses, while 30 percent say they expect to have their minds made up at least a week ahead of time. Just 3 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers say they've signed a pledge card for a particular candidate, while 1 percent admit to signing one for more than one candidate.

Among the top four candidates in the poll, Cruz scores the highest on half of the 14 candidate attributes tested, with Trump winning the other half. Cruz is strongest on items related to presidential leadership, while Trump is strongest on questions related to getting specific things done, such as managing the economy, solving illegal immigration and reducing the deficit.



The billionaire real estate mogul also beats Cruz, 30 percent to 26 percent, on the question of who has the best chance to beat Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the general election.

Underscoring the anti-establishment mood, just 19 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers say they'd prefer a governor to win the nomination. Senators are picked by 30 percent, while a "government outsider who has handled complex issues and managed teams" is the preference of 39 percent.

A minority of 40 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers support making abortion illegal, including in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Among supporters of Cruz—who supports a no-exceptions abortion ban—that number is 58 percent, compared to 30 percent among Trump's backers.

More than two-thirds of likely Republican caucus-goers want to stop all U.S. resettlement of Syrian war refugees, 61 percent support sending at least 20,000 troops to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and 54 percent support deporting the estimated 11 million undocumented residents in the U.S.

On fiscal issues, almost three-quarters of Republican caucus-goers support a tax reform plan that cuts taxes on all Americans, including the very wealthiest. Sixty one percent want to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. Roughly the same proportion want to repeal the financial reform laws enacted after the banking crisis in 2008, and say they think climate change is a hoax.

The Iowa Poll, taken Dec. 7-10, included 400 likely Republican caucus participants. On the full sample, it has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, although higher for subgroups.

[Ryan Ruck]

CNN debate about to start...

[Ryan Ruck]

This debate was garbage thanks to CNN. Asking long flowing questions and expecting bumper sticker responses.

If I recall, Christie and Paul were supposed to be excluded from the main debate and then CNN changed their mind (likely since they knew it would handicap the Republicans in general). Those two and at least 2 more should have been excluded.

For once Cruz actually had the most time but only because he elbowed it in there. Lapdog Blitzer cutting him off before the bell even sounded. LOL. What a joke.

[Ryan Ruck]

I particularly liked the question essentially asking if the candidates wanted to bomb innocent children. Fucking CNN idiots.

I wish one of them (preferable Cruz) would have responded with, "Well Wolf, first let me preemptively apologize to our Southern brothers but, I believe General William T. Sherman answered this question 200+ years ago when he said, 'We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and we must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war... to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us... We cannot change the hearts and minds of those people of the South, but we can make war so terrible ... [and] make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.'"