Ted Cruz increasingly looks like the man to beat in Iowa.

He’s rising in the polls, building on an already extensive field organization and locking down critical conservative endorsements.


Among the biggest yet came Thursday, when Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the conservative group Family Leader, came out for Cruz, citing what he sees as electability in Iowa and nationally.

“This is a guy that’s been very consistent in principles, in communications, and his campaign has shown ability to slowly gain ground and build momentum, and appears to have great staying power," he told POLITICO. "I don’t see his numbers going down, I see them going up.”

Cruz’s Iowa surge is coming at the expense of Ben Carson and other Republicans seeking a share of the state’s considerable evangelical vote. And with Cruz leading the field in a Monmouth University Iowa poll released this week, rivals are suddenly confronted with a new level of urgency in their efforts to stop the Texas senator from building early-state momentum that could carry him through the South Carolina primary next year and into March 1, when seven other Southern states will go to the polls.

The Vander Plaats endorsement came in the midst of a fruitful week for Cruz, which included national endorsements Wednesday from the National Organization for Marriage and from Richard Viguerie, a prominent conservative voice and the founding father of political direct mail.

“I think you can look at the [Vander Plaats] endorsement as continued evidence that Sen. Cruz is consolidating support here in Iowa, building an organization that’s capable of winning on Feb. 1,” said Eric Woolson, formerly a key Iowa operative for Scott Walker, who is now unaligned. “If he’s not the frontrunner [in Iowa], he’s certainly in the top two, he and Mr. Trump.”

It’s an assessment that’s now commonly shared in Iowa, nationally and among Cruz’s supporters.

“Yes, he’s the frontrunner,” said Steve Deace, a prominent Iowa radio host who offered one of the first major endorsements from the state’s socially conservative wing when he backed Cruz in August. He sees either Cruz or Trump winning Iowa, with the other one finishing second.

“You’re going to see conservatives, and not just in Iowa, coalesce behind Cruz” following the Vander Plaats endorsement, Deace said. “And as much cache as Bob has in Iowa, he has a huge amount of influence nationally…and I think you will see more and more conservative leaders come out for Cruz, like you saw a couple of them [do] yesterday. I think it’ll be a big tidal wave, and I think it will be the most united we’ve ever seen the conservative movement when it’s all said and done.”

The Cruz campaign is beginning to see returns from months of methodically courting evangelical and other conservative grassroots leaders, many of whom have expressed hope that conservatives would unite around one candidate early enough to ensure that their choice, rather than an establishment favorite, secures the nomination -- in contrast to previous presidential cycles.

David Lane, an unaffiliated evangelical leader, sees evidence that national leaders hoping to gather around one candidate are increasingly inclined toward Cruz.

“I think it’s just an indication that everything is heading that direction — Vander Plaats, he’s sort of pulling the anchor,” said Lane, who has hosted events with many of the Republican candidates. “I’m assuming that this is just the beginning, and over the next 60 days, evangelicals will be uniting behind Cruz.”

In Iowa, that consolidation among social conservatives kicked off in earnest last month when influential conservative Congressman Steve King came out in support of Cruz, echoing the choice of his son, Jeff, who is aiding a pro-Cruz super PAC in Iowa.

King, Deace and Vander Plaats represent a trifecta of key social conservative endorsements, and give Cruz entrée to their extensive Iowa networks, in addition to the one the senator has already built: Cruz has chairs in every county in the first four early-voting states, and is in the process of a recruiting a supportive pastor in each of Iowa’s 99 counties to further bolster his strength with conservative Christians.

Of the three prominent endorsers now on Cruz’s side in Iowa, Vander Plaats has the best record of backing winners: he aligned with Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012, both of whom went on to win.

The Cruz campaign has “gone about the process of connecting with social conservatives, Christian conservatives, very deliberately, and we’ve just been seeing that slow build-up,” Woolson said. “It’s been a very concerted, deliberate effort and I think it’s paying results.”

Yet it’s also possible, as other campaigns are quick to note, that Cruz is peaking too early. The 2016 campaign has already seen several boom-and-bust candidacies, from Scott Walker to Ben Carson, both of whom were at one time considered presumptive Iowa frontrunners. Cruz could also slip, they argue, as more scrutiny accompanies his rise in the polls.

Marco Rubio, another presidential candidate whose stock is rising, has already taken to criticizing Cruz frequently over his national security record. Other prominent voices, from the Wall Street Journal editorial board to Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, have piled on, blasting Cruz’s vote for rolling back National Security Agency surveillance powers. A non-profit run by a political operative supportive of Rubio has already taken out a $200,000 ad in Iowa hitting Cruz on that subject.

“If this was Jan. 15, it’d be a very different story,” said Matt Beynon, a spokesman for Santorum, the rival who won Iowa in 2012 but is a longshot this cycle. “Now you’re going to have nearly two months of scrutiny. Time will tell if Cruz has the political staying power to rise or whether he wilts like many other campaigns have in the past.”

While Cruz led the field in one poll this week, another showed Trump ahead, and the billionaire continues to lead Cruz and the rest of the field by double digits nationally.

So far, Cruz has taken a kid-glove approach to Trump and to the currently sliding Carson, telling donors at a private fundraiser on Wednesday he believes "gravity will bring both of those campaigns down” and that “the lion’s share of their supporters come to us," according to audio posted by the New York Times.

"[My] approach, much to the frustration of the media, has been to bear hug both of them, and smother them with love," he said on the recording.

But Viguerie said Trump’s continued success in the polls – he’s led in the majority of surveys since July -- is part of the reason national and Iowa conservatives are increasingly voicing their support for Cruz.

“Quite frankly, there’s a serious concern among a lot of conservatives that Trump could be the nominee if conservatives don’t unite behind a candidate,” he said. “At this point in time, given the dynamics of the race…it’s clear to myself and many other conservatives that the only candidate that can unite the conservatives is Ted Cruz.”

There are limits to the value of big endorsements, said Matt Strawn, a former chair of the Iowa GOP who is unaligned this cycle, but the Vander Plaats endorsement is a sign that Cruz’s “coalesce” strategy is working.

“It’s further evidence that Cruz is having success consolidating the various clans on Iowa’s ideological right,” he said. “Paired with [Steve] King, with, whether it’s state legislators or other in-state leaders…it’s a signal…that he is really starting to consolidate the core, anti-establishment vote in the state.”

