TRUSSVILLE, Ala. — He jets between stops in a charter plane, the crowds at his events line up in advance outside the doors and young attendees are treated to peppermint sticks and pictures with Santa.

It’s not quite the spectacle of the Donald Trump show, but as Ted Cruz barnstorms through his 12-day Southern swing he is producing his own series of campaign extravaganzas that befit his newfound status as Trump’s closest rival.


The differences between this tour and Cruz’s first major trip through the South — a summer bus tour in August — are manifest. The crowds are bigger this time and the events come with more bells and whistles, ranging from videos that feature endorsements from prominent conservative leaders to the heightened presence of lawmakers and party officials.

Back in August, as a middle-of-the-packer, Cruz’s stops at restaurants and in parking lots had an informal feel. Now, firmly ensconced in second place after Trump in national polls and leading in Iowa, Cruz holds elaborate and orderly gatherings marked by single-file lines to enter the venues, VIP lists and a robust security presence.

“Typically a conservative campaign is an insurgency, and this is not an insurgency,” said campaign manager Jeff Roe. “This is a methodical plan that’s coming together every single day as more conservatives unite.”

The Texas senator is now halfway through his 12-cities-in-12-days tour through many of the Southern states that vote on March 1 — states that Cruz is counting on to serve as a firewall. But looming large over Cruz’s splashy efforts is Trump, whose own rallies — particularly here in Alabama — have drawn huge crowds.

Cruz’s events this weekend were hardly on Trump’s scale. He had 1,300 at a Saturday event near Mobile, and around 1,500 packed into a civic center here, in this small town near Birmingham, on Sunday — large crowds for any candidate other than Trump, who drew roughly 20,000 people to Mobile in August.

Many of those in attendance at Cruz’s rallies were hopeful that the senator’s field organization and debate performances will keep him competitive in the region despite widespread interest in Trump, at least some of which, they contend, is due to the novelty factor of his candidacy rather than genuine support.

In Alabama and elsewhere in the South, Cruz has brought on board leading conservative activists and is organizing intensively on the ground, aggressively list-building at his rallies by encouraging attendees to text the word “liberty” to a number he provided.

“I think people believe Trump can’t win it in the end, so the next best option is Cruz, because Cruz sticks to the Constitution,” said Tony Gasbarro, a 66-year-old fair tax activist. He went on to add that he thinks about two-thirds of those who turn out for Trump are actually interested in him, and one-third are simply there for the spectacle.

Charles Spitzley, a Cruz supporter who along with his wife was waiting outside for 30 minutes before the Trussville event began, was also dismissive of the depth of Trump’s support.

“Trump gets big crowds, but he’s not a person whose character we need running the country,” said Spitzley, 62.

At least, “Lord willing, [Cruz] will beat out Trump,” noted Robin Spitzley, his wife.

Cruz had a commanding 9-percentage point lead over Trump in Iowa according to a CBS poll released Sunday, winning the support of 40 percent of likely Republican caucus to 31 percent for Trump. But Cruz continues to trail the billionaire by double-digits nationally.

“Ted is No. 1 in Iowa,” said the senator’s wife Heidi Cruz, as she introduced him here Sunday. Acknowledging Trump’s advantage in national polls, she went on to note that her daughter has called that Iowa standing “yesterday’s news.”

“She said, ‘I think you guys should try to be No. 1 nationally.’ We’re on our way, we’re working on that,” Heidi Cruz said to applause.

Heidi Cruz and the senator’s two young daughters accompanied him throughout the Alabama swing, joining him aboard the charter jet, which also housed the senator’s body man, campaign manager, chief strategist and press secretary. Cruz usually flies commercial, but the charter has allowed him to cover greater distances in a day – he’s hit five states since Thursday.

The Cruz family was featured heavily during Cruz’s campaign swing. On Sunday, after Heidi Cruz introduced her husband, describing some of his more romantic gestures — his commitments to date night and Valentine’s flowers, for example — she was joined by Cruz and their daughters onstage, and each parent held one of their daughters.

A day earlier, the two young girls were seen running around onstage after Cruz’s speech, sporting reindeer antler headbands, in keeping with the Christmas-theme of Cruz’s “Take off with Ted” fly-around tour.

In deeply conservative Alabama — the second-most conservative state in the union, following Mississippi, according to Gallup — attendees took note of the family optics.

“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Faye Thomas, an attendee who lives near this conservative Birmingham suburb, as she walked into the civic center and looked around. “Thank God he’s a good Christian, the man’s a family man and he’s going to win in 2016.”

Cruz was flanked on his Alabama swing by prominent state lawmakers who defended him from the other rival, besides Trump, whom most political observers here say poses a threat to him in the South: Marco Rubio, who has been seeking to paint Cruz as inconsistent in the details of his opposition to immigration reform.

Rep. Mo Brooks, a conservative congressman, joined him Sunday and backed up Cruz on his immigration record, and Sen. Jeff Sessions did the same on Saturday — and his attendance prompted Cruz to start talking about Cabinet positions in a potential Cruz administration.

“For anyone who wonders, ‘Can we really secure the border?’ I’ve got three words for you: Secretary Jeff Sessions!” he said at both stops.

The gap in national polls between Cruz, Rubio and Trump — who together collect about two-thirds of the vote, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average — and the rest of the GOP field is mirrored in Alabama and the rest of the South, say plugged-in local Republicans.

“We have a fight in the party, with most of the establishment people for Rubio, most tea party conservatives are for Cruz and then I don’t know how to classify Trump voters,” said Chris Brown, an Alabama GOP consultant who is backing Bush, of the dynamic in the state right now. “Cruz has probably organized his campaign, from top to bottom nationally, better than any other candidate. He raises money, his ground game and organization touches the right buttons…the trajectory for him bodes well to win the state of Alabama. But he’ll still have to get past Trump.”

