SIOUX CITY, Iowa — 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 Barack Obama’s Middle East posture and pledge a hard-line approach to Syrian Muslim refugees.

It was exactly what this crowd of mostly conservative Christians wanted — and an ominous sign for Iowa’s weakened front-runner, 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 retired neurosurgeon and a dismissive critique by his own advisers, 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 2½ 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 that 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,” 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 One 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.

Republican presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz are introduced at the Presidential Family Forum on November 20, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. | Getty

“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” he is 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" who 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.