Ted Cruz Won't Win

Before I start, I want to clarify that I mean he can't win the primary. Its not about whether I want him to or not. It won't happen.

Currently the news is that Donald Trump (when isn't he in the news), is causing some real pain for the establishment. That has been the news throughout, but it has interrupted a crucial December story. As Trump takes up the airways, Ted Cruz has fallen a bit out of sight. This is surprising, considering the coverage he and Rubio were receiving after the most recent debates. Cruz has been on a surge and currently leads the polls for Iowa and is second, though distant, to Trump nationally. With all the money he has, the surge in the polls at the right time, and the only real candidate with significant poll numbers, there has been some talk that Cruz is likely to win the nomination. I disagree.

In the beginning of the polls, way back in September of last year, Cruz was hanging out with the rest of the crowd.  He was in the middle of the pack, with names like Bush, Huckabee, and, hard to believe, Walker. It wasn't until about Halloween where he started to pull away a bit, but at the time he was followed by Rubio. Then, about mid-December Rubio peaked, while Cruz kept going, bolstered by excellent reports on his debate performance. Part of Rubio's fall was the closer scrutiny, whether you agree or not, on his personal economic situation.

Credit to RealClearPolitics

After this series of triumphs Cruz stood alone among the truly political candidates. Carson would then crash under scrutiny leaving Trump and Cruz fighting for the Republican ticket. The talk is that the establishment would prefer Cruz to Trump, though according to Rush Limbaugh “Republican leadership prefers Hillary over Cruz!”. And this is weird to say, but I almost think I agree with Rush. They will do anything to stop Trump and quite a bit to stop Cruz, but I think that in spite of this, Trump has a better chance of being the nominee than Cruz and here is why.

People think Cruz has a chance because he is climbing in the polls. Sure, its early January, the first primaries for the Republican party are in early February, and this seems indicative of a trend and even a victorious campaign. I can't say I agree. Polls are a tricky thing as FiveThirtyEight will tell you. You might think that we are awfully close at this point and its too late for Cruz's poll numbers to drop, but take a look at the chart below. RealClearPolitics published this four years ago while covering the Republican Primary of 2012. We could talk first about the various contenders who rose rapidly but then flamed out, like Rick Perry (dark blue) and Herman Cain (tannish), but more relevant is the lime green line of Newt Gingrich. If you estimate the date when he escaped from the pack and passed Rick Perry you would say it was around Halloween, the same time as Cruz's separation from the pack (I didn't estimate, I used the interactive graphic on the website here). Even as late as January 2^nd Gingrich was still on the top of the pile. When he fell he rebounded and then fell again just as the first primaries arrived. My point is, even now polls don't mean much, especially for someone who just started rising, like Cruz. I think Trump's polls are more powerful (though I am not claiming he will actually win the nomination), because his have lasted quite a long time.

Credit to RealClearPolitics

So Cruz could lose his poll numbers, but why? Just saying he could be like the others is not enough to prove he is. I think a key issue is his lack of support from fellow Republicans. FiveThirtyEight thinks endorsements matter, and I agree. They have been helpful in compiling a chart to show who has endorsements from whom. While there is no obvious front-runner among Republican candidates, and Cruz had managed to pick up a handful of representatives, his lack of governors and senators is glaring. It isn't just that he doesn't have many, but that there will be few to follow. Cruz is not competing with the 'establishment' candidates like Bush, Kaisch, and Christie. The only reason they don't have more is because the party leaders don't want to split their endorsements four or five ways. Once one of them does well, they will receive the bulk of endorsements. But endorsers are not waiting for Cruz to win. He is so different from the others, that those who support him have already endorsed him. No one else plans to. This stems from the dislike that he has engendered by his behavior in the senate. He has grandstanded for his own benefit, criticized ranking members of the senate, and convinced Republican voters to demand what the party can not deliver, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Because of this, most Republican senators don't like Ted Cruz. That is not to say that they won't back him eventually if at the convention only him and Trump are left standing but it may be too late then.

Finally, Ted Cruz won't win because he is not Donald Trump. I don't know if Trump will win the Republican primary. I don't think he will. But I think he has a better chance than Cruz. Cruz has been trying to masquerade as the more politically correct version of Trump. He has nearly been an apologist for what Trump has been saying, defending him from the critiques of the other Republicans. He has done this so much that Lindsey Graham plans to endorse whoever he thinks can bring down both Trump and Cruz. The assumption is that Cruz plans to take Trump's supporters when he loses a primary and they bail.

I think that Trump will either get his voters or they won't show up. I see no reason why Trump will lose them to Cruz. If Cruz's poll numbers show he is doing well, Trump's show he is doing even better. The establishment dislikes them both, so I see no way that Cruz has more sustainability than Trump. And he can't beat Trump at his own game. We can break this down a bit.

Donald Trump is a political outsider. Sure he has been involved in commenting on politics for awhile. He even claimed quite a few times he would run, but he never has. He has no political experience, except perhaps in the buying and selling of politicians. Ted Cruz, for all his bluster and the dislike he has earned from his fellow Republicans is not an outsider.

“He clerked for two Republican judges. He practiced law in Washington for a law firm well-connected to Republicans on Capitol Hill. He worked for George W. Bush's presidential campaign, then had two jobs in Washington in the Bush administration. And Cruz has been a U.S. senator since January 2013.” If Trump wants to run as the outsider, he can bring down Ted Cruz's claim to be the outsider easily. Trump's base will love it. They are not going to turn to Cruz.

Ted Cruz could try to broker some sort of deal where he is the moderate choice between Trump and the establishment, but recently he has been throwing the opportunity away. That is a real mistake, because he can't run to the right of Trump. As we have seen, Trump is the perfect performer and he won't let anyone take the right-wing of the Republican party away from him. He always leads with the claims and plans that the radical wing love; the wall that Mexico will pay for, the travel ban on Muslims into the United States, and saying McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured. Trump can think of these better than Ted Cruz can. Trump has also managed to say these ideas and thrive, to surprise of everyone. He seems above the laws of conventional politics. Cruz is not. If Cruz said them he would not survive.

But even if Cruz had a chance with Trump's supporters this is exactly the wrong time. Cruz is threatening Trump just as the primary arrives and Trump has him in his sights. Trump already took down Bush with the “low-energy” comment, Fiorina has not managed to overcome the insults done to her, and he damaged Carson's campaign by calling him “like a child-molester in his pathological disease of violence”.  I paraphrased that last one, but its not too far off.  Trump recently unveiled his opening salvo with his attack on Ted Cruz's citizenship. Since Cruz was born in Canada, Trump claims that he is not eligible to be elected President. It doesn't matter if it is true or not. All that matters is that Trump's supporters, and Cruz's, believe it. And if you think no one will latch onto it, well, Ann Coulter already has pasted her support for Trump and his attack on her blog. Trump fights dirty and he isn't about to let anyone take his supporters away.

Cruz won't win.

As for whether Trump will that's a different story for another time. 

Images from public domain and RealClearPolitics 

The Primary Season 2016:

Ted Cruz Won't Win

Who wins debates?

How Politicians Change or Remain Themselves

Bernie Sanders ≠ Donald Trump

Why Kasich is Still Holding On

The Primaries Are Undemocratic: But They Don't Have to Be