Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign often lambasts the “Washington cartel,” but he has begun touting that he can fundraise with the best of the D.C. insiders he wants to defeat.
While outsiders continue to dominate the Republican presidential field, the Texas senator appeared to cast himself as the outsider on the inside track in terms of campaign fundraising during a press conference at Cruz campaign headquarters on Monday. Cruz held the presser to announce that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick would serve as his campaign’s Texas chairman.
Cruz said most Republican candidates have chosen not to run national campaigns, but are focusing on single states and “hoping to get struck by lightning.”
“This cycle its too accelerated to do that [focus on only one state], you’ve got to be able to run a national campaign,” Cruz said. “We hope and believe Super Tuesday is going to be a very very good day for our presidential campaign.”
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The senator also poached six members of the finance team from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s defunct presidential campaign.
“Rick Perry was a great governor for the state of Texas,” Cruz said in a statement. “These six Texas business leaders who supported the governor speak to the kind of man Perry is. I am humbled and honored to have their support.”
Cruz noted that he had more cash-on-hand at the end of the third quarter than former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a fact he claimed would have made most of the reporters in the room laugh at him if he had predicted it a few months ago. He said that some campaigns receive a large quantity of small dollar donations or exclusively rely on big money donors, but Cruz believes he is the best candidate to bridge the divide and raise money from both sides. He added that his campaign has amassed 360,000 contributions thus far with the average donation amounting to $73.
Cruz said he believes the Republican nominee needs to have the right message, grassroots support and money to win. While members of his own party — including House Speaker John Boehner and former President George W. Bush — appear to despise him, his appearance on Monday was aimed at letting the public know he can rake in the big bucks necessary to win too.
