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The Cruz-Breitbart Connection

Adapted from my piece this morning with Katie Glueck and Ken Vogel looking at the deep connection between Sen. Ted Cruz and Breitbart.com:

Ted Cruz, who currently sits in the middle of the Republican pack, is benefitting from close ties to Breitbart Media, resulting in positive coverage and at times preferential treatment.

From winning reader polls and the conservative website’s coverage of the Texas Senator, to donor connections behind the scenes, Cruz likely has the Republican presidential field’s deepest relationship with the Breitbart machine — a relationship he’s seeking to parlay into more energized grassroots support.

Cruz is winning Breitbart's first ever reader poll of presidential candidates and the site regularly posts exclusives with the presidential candidate.

Behind the scenes there is perhaps an even more important connection between Cruz and Breitbart.

Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon has worked with New York hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, a major Cruz donor who is also a major Breitbart backer, on political projects including data firm Cambridge Analytica, which is also working with the Cruz campaign, according to conservative finance operatives. They describe Bannon as something of a gatekeeper for Mercer, who keeps a close circle of associates and has not publicly advocated for Cruz. According to the New York Times, Mercer is the main donor behind a network of four super PACs supporting Cruz’s bid for president. Mercer’s daughter Rebekah Mercer, who has helped steer the family’s increasingly public investment in conservative politics, was an early Cruz supporter, hosting a fundraiser in April for the Texas Senator.

A spokesman for the Mercers decline to comment on their involvement in Breitbart.com or whether they have sought to shape the outlet’s coverage of Cruz. Breitbart editors refused to comment on the Mercer connection saying they’re a “private company and we don’t comment on who our investors or backers are.”

“Breitbart is perfectly content letting these nameless/faceless ‘multiple places’ as you put it speculate, gossip and exhaust their imaginations telling reporters tales of what they think they know,” a Breitbart spokesperson said in a statement.

And Rick Tyler, Cruz’s spokesman, said that Mercer’s involvement in Breitbart also had no effect on the Cruz campaign’s dealings with the outlet.

“I answered the phone for you just like I would answer for Breitbart,” he told a POLITICO reporter. “I don’t stop and look at who POLITICO’s investors are. I think we have open access to all the media outlets except the ones that have an agenda,” which aren’t real outlets, he said.

Marlow said Cruz’s views often align well with those of the site’s editors and readers, but that Breitbart.com been critical of him in the past.

“[Cruz] tends to have a lot of ideas that are supported by a lot of our readers … but we’ve been critical of him in the past particularly when he went down to the border with Glenn Beck and brought soccer balls — we were pretty brutal there,” Marlow said.

Breitbart has published articles about how Cruz is “poorly matched to defeat Hillary.” The site also hammered Cruz over his initial support for fast-track authority on the trade deal, a position he later reversed — through an op-ed posted at Breitbart.com. And, to be sure, Breitbart has also showered favorable coverage on the likes of Walker, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and, in the past couple of weeks, Donald Trump.

Read the full piece here.

Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.