Senator Ted Cruz, in Iowa. Photograph by Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty

“There has never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses,” a spokesman for Ben Carson’s campaign said on Tuesday. He was referring to what he called Ted Cruz’s “abject lies” and, particularly, to what appears to have been a concerted effort on the part of the Cruz campaign to persuade voters at caucuses that Carson had dropped out. Carson himself told Fox News that his wife had had to personally refute that rumor at one caucus site—and once she had, he said, he won there. "Isn't this the exact kind of thing that the American people are tired of? Why would we want to continue that kind of, you know, shenanigans?” Donald Trump put the charge in his own terms in a tweet: "Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!”

That was only part of what Trump had to say. He threatened to sue Cruz; he made himself the champion of the honor of Ben Carson, a man who Trump has suggested is “pathological.” He tweeted that "the State of Iowa should disqualify Ted Cruz from the most recent election on the basis that he cheated—a total fraud!” Cruz had also sent out a mailer marked “Voter Violation,” which purported to contain information about voters and their neighbors, and was printed on yellow paper to look like a real ticket—which, as Ryan Lizza noted, was just the beginning of its problems. It was a “disgrace,” Trump said, adding what was, for a New York real-estate developer, the ultimate insult: “It looks right out of municipal government.” Cruz tried to dismiss it all as a “Trumpertantrum.” The problem was that, in the whirlwind of Trump’s rage, there were some hard objects swirling around and banging into Cruz’s story.

Cruz has said that he won Iowa by being uncompromising and clever, with all those data-driven, micro-targeted canvassing runs—part of what his campaign reportedly called the Oorlog Project. According to Sasha Issenberg, of Bloomberg News, it was “named by a Cruz data scientist who searched online for ‘war' translated into different languages and thought the Afrikaner word looked coolest.” (“War” is cool; “war” with a hint of an illiberal siege mentality in its orthography is, apparently, coolest.) And it was, by all accounts, a get-out-the-vote drive like none other—even better than Barack Obama’s, in 2008, which had set the standard.

Then, on Monday evening, as the caucuses were assembling, Chris Moody, a CNN reporter, sent out three tweets in the space of two minutes. The first referred to a flight that Carson would be catching that night; the second said that “Carson won't go to NH/SC, but instead will head home to Florida for some R&R. He'll be in DC Thursday for the National Prayer Breakfast.” The third, seconds later, noted that “Ben Carson's campaign tells me he plans to stay in the race beyond Iowa no matter what the results are tonight.” CNN’s on-air report also made it clear that the Florida trip was just a detour. Nevertheless, the Cruz campaign sprung into action and retailed the second tweet, out of context, as news of the suspension of Carson’s campaign. The Cruz camp’s emphasis on quick, sophisticated communications meant that it could send a directive to spread the story to campaign workers in every Iowa precinct, but it also left behind a digital trail of tweets and e-mail alerts. One of the tweets, from Representative Steve King, the campaign’s national co-chair, said, “Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope”—and it was sent after the Carson campaign had issued clarifications.

But Carson’s precinct captains, in turn, texted in reports of what they were hearing: dirty tricks are easier to disseminate and to document when everyone has a smartphone. At first, Cruz’s campaign said that Carson’s complaints were “absurd.” Then Cruz apologized to Carson for “a mistake” on the part of some of his staff members, but added that the campaign’s real error was to trust CNN’s report that Carson was “not carrying on” without following up on it. He loved Carson, Cruz said, at a news conference on Wednesday—“I will praise his character”—and everything else was just the media stirring up trouble. “Is it a dirty trick to pass on your news stories? You’re in the business!" Cruz said. With a glint, as if struck by the aptness of his own retort, he added, “Would you think it was a dirty trick if I was forwarding an ABC story? Or is it just a dirty trick to pass on a CNN story?”

CNN, which was covering the press conference, cut back to the anchor Brooke Baldwin. “O.K.,” she said. She paused and collected herself. "Just so we're all crystal clear here, when Senator Cruz, with all due respect, tries to throw my network and CNN under the bus, let me stand up for my colleagues and journalists here.” Her face bore an expression that, if Cruz stays in the campaign much longer—and he will, maybe to the end—will need its own name. After explaining, again, what CNN had reported, Baldwin turned back to her guest, Representative Mark Meadows, of North Carolina, who has endorsed Cruz, and apologized for getting “fired up.” Meadows smiled and said that he knew how hard the job was—“it’s one thing to report, it’s another to verify it”—as if, again, Cruz’s only error had been to trust the media. Baldwin squinted, tilted her head, and stopped him.

"Congressman, forgive me, but I’m going to call out B.S. when I hear B.S. And that was B.S.,” Baldwin said. If only someone would do that during the debates. Later on Wednesday night, Cruz acknowledged that “CNN got it correct.” He added, “Miracles happen.” He had moved on to attacking Trump. During the months when Cruz was flattering Trump and mimicking his bigotry, he seems also to have been building up his own store of personal insults, which he is deploying now. But Cruz’s blunt objects are always finely sanded and polished. Donald, as he refers to him, is “fragile” and a “child.” He is a Twitter addict, and, Cruz said, "We’re liable to wake up one morning and Donald, if he were President, would have nuked Denmark.” One couldn’t dispute that general picture, though the choice of Denmark is odd. (Perhaps it was a backhanded way to also irritate supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, who points to Scandinavia as an economic model.) But Cruz is also working hard to portray Trump as soft on immigration and as someone who wouldn't be as ruthless a deporter as he would be. How is it that when a leading G.O.P. candidate finally, forcefully turns on Trump, it only serves to underscore the ugliness that Trump has added to our political discourse? This week, Cruz released a (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOJrYxHQO-E) decrying not just Trump’s deals but the whole concept of deal-making. The video also attacks Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, and John Boehner, who was, until recently, the Speaker of the House, to the extent that one might think they were also running against him in the primary. Cruz himself is introduced with a closeup shot of his cowboy boots.

Many politicians are shameless; what seems to set Cruz apart is his unhidden pride in the craft of the political slur, the artistry of nastiness. Even his opponents were impressed by his get-out-the-vote operation, but Cruz couldn’t stop himself from offering an additional factor: his persistent attacks on "New York values” had resonated, he told ABC News. “Everyone knows what New York values are,” he said. We do, in this town. Does anyone know what Ted Cruz’s values are?