Ted Cruz remains a force in crowded GOP field

Rick Jervis | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Cruz calls for flat tax, abolishing IRS Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said he would work to institute a flat tax and abolish the IRS if elected President, while speaking from the Des Moines Register's Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair.

AUSTIN — Ted Cruz has been called disrespectful, unruly and, at times, unlikable.

Yet even as fellow rabble-rouser Donald Trump continues to overshadow the first-term Texas senator at his own game of “call-it-like-it-is" in the Republican presidential race, Cruz has maintained his popularity and continues to fill rallies with boisterous supporters.

And, perhaps most importantly, he's third in fundraising with nearly $53 million between his official campaign and the super PACs supporting his bid as of the most recent reporting deadline, a figure that trails only Jeb Bush and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

So, how is Cruz doing it?

“Cruz is intensely disliked by his Senate colleagues,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “But, with the electorate this year, that’s a big plus.”

Cruz, 44, shot to power from relative obscurity in 2012, when he defeated Texas’ lieutenant governor in the Republican primary and went on to win a U.S. Senate seat. Ever since, he’s been an unflinching, and at times, combative, conservative presence in Washington: performing a filibuster that led to a government shutdown, calling out Senate colleagues and battling President Obama at every turn.

In many ways, Cruz is running not just against the 16 other GOP presidential candidates but against party establishment itself.

Cruz is maintaining his dogged presence and becoming a rare “conviction conservative” candidate who stands by his principles despite potentially alienating more moderate voters, said Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston.

“A Cruz presidential candidacy would challenge the vision that you have to come toward the center to win key battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Colorado,” he said. “Cruz in some ways is proposing an alternative strategy that remains untested.”

At least in the GOP primaries, the strategy seems to be working. A recent Fox News poll had Cruz in third place with 10% of the vote, ahead of Bush. A CNN/ORC poll released two days later dropped Cruz further down the field.

One of Cruz’s biggest hurdles remains Trump, who has likely won many anti-establishment voters who would otherwise back Cruz, said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. But if Trump’s candidacy fizzles in the coming months, Cruz is uniquely positioned to recapture many of those voters, Henson said.

Unlike some of his fellow GOP candidates, Cruz has been careful not to criticize Trump and has even defended some of his more controversial remarks. Last month, the two met to discuss the race.

“Cruz is bound to inherit some of the seriously discontented voters Trump has attracted," Henson said. "The people who are looking for someone who cuts the profile of the outsider or insurgent are likely to give Cruz a pretty good look."

Another engine propelling the Cruz campaign: cash. Cruz and super PACs affiliated with him have raised a lot of it, including $15 million from a single family in Texas, according to federal filings. That war chest allows Cruz to continue to rankle the GOP elite without fear of being cut off from their fundraising sources, Jones said.

The money also allows him to potentially falter through early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and hang on for the Texas primary March 1, where he is expected to do well, Jones said. “If he can remain in the top three or four, he very well could come out of March 1 winning the headlines,” he said. Cruz received a boost in Iowa on Wednesday, picking up the endorsement of influential radio talk show host Steve Deace.

Beyond strategies and cash, Cruz appeals to a swath of voters who want to see radical change in Washington. Dale Hus, a Tea Party activist in the Houston area, said he was swayed by Cruz’s stance on issues during his 2012 Senate campaign and has been impressed at how he has stuck to those principles throughout his time in Washington. Hus has since poured his own time and money convincing others to vote for Cruz.

“Right from the very beginning, he’s addressed the tough issues, took on the tough challenges and tried to make a difference,” Hus said. “He’s done everything we’ve asked for.”

Sabato, the University of Virginia political scientist, witnessed Cruz’s prowess firsthand last year when he invited the senator to speak to his Introduction to American Politics class. Cruz spoke in an auditorium in front of 400 students, who tended to be liberal, then took unscreened questions. The pointed, at times combative, questions spanned issues ranging from immigration to foreign policy to gay marriage.

Cruz answered all of them. At the end, the class gave him a prolonged ovation.

“He was fearless,” Sabato said. “His performance told me very early on he was not a candidate to be dismissed.”

Follow @MrRJervis on Twitter.