You wouldn’t know it from his current sixth place standing in the polls or the many headlines that cast him as Donald Trump’s sidekick, but Ted Cruz is slowly creeping his way toward the nomination.
The Texas senator could very well be the sleeper, the ambush predator, and the fabled tortoise of this election — in other words, the candidate who, despite his middling performance thus far, should in no way be dismissed. With an impressive campaign operation, long game strategy, and dedicated network of donors, small and large, Cruz is still very much in this race and, perhaps, the most underrated candidate in the GOP field.
The latest bit of evidence? Late Thursday, the Cruz campaign announced it had brought in more than $12 million during the last fundraising quarter, which ended on Sept. 30. The total was well below the more than $20 million raised by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whose star has been rising since summer’s end. But it was also twice as much as the $6 million brought in by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the man considered by a growing cadre of political watchers to be the future nominee.
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Cruz’s third quarter numbers came on top of an already monstrous fundraising haul for the Texas lawmaker, who ranked third overall in the presidential money race, according to the last FEC filing report, and raised more “hard money” than any other Republican candidate. Last week, the campaign also rolled out an American Revolution-themed crowdfunding platform called CruzCrowd, which should help him to capitalize even more on his small-donor network.
The money alone would be enough to make political analysts stand up and take notice.
“I think he’s undervalued stock right now,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak told msnbc. “He raised more hard money through the second quarter than anyone else, which is a stunning thing. And he’s got a low burn rate. He’s been very efficient.”
Even Democrats were impressed, as evidenced by former President Obama advisor Dan Pfeiffer’s reaction to Cruz’s fundraising numbers on Twitter:
Cruz continues to run the best campaign on the other side https://t.co/hKxh5hFKTX
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) October 9, 2015
But Cruz is more than money. He also has a smart leave-no-delegate-behind strategy that extends well beyond Iowa, a proven ability to inherit supporters from dead campaigns, and a consistent, conservative message from which he rarely strays. While that steadfastness can sometimes make him come across as too scripted, it also keeps him from wandering into the same pitfalls that have confounded some of his rivals. It would be unlikely, for example, to hear Cruz argue that the term “anchor babies” was “more related to Asian people,” as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently goofed, because Cruz sticks like glue to his carefully crafted talking points on topics such as religious liberty, the Second Amendment, and Ronald Reagan.
“Whether you like Cruz or not, he’s clearly at that first-rate level,” Mackowiak said. “From an intellectual standpoint, to his ability to not make a lot of mistakes, to his work ethic, it all adds up to definitely being a first-tier political talent.”
One of the strongest elements of Cruz’s campaign is his ever-growing ground game. He’s naming new additions to his leadership teams almost daily, paying attention to even the most far-flung of places like the U.S. Virgin Islands, which sends delegates to both the Republican and Democratic national conventions without being able to participate in the general election. A bit closer to home, the Cruz campaign announced earlier this week that it had named chairmen in all 171 counties that make up the first four early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
But Cruz is also looking ahead. Over the summer, he traveled through several southern states that comprise the so-called SEC primary — a new regional voting blitz set to take place on March 1. Because RNC rules require states that vote before March 15 to award delegates on a proportional basis, rather than on a winner-take-all system, the SEC primary could be a major delegate boon for Cruz, giving him a good push into the winner-take-all contests.








