Texas Sen. Ted Cruz offered a staunch defense of Second Amendment rights on the presidential campaign trail in South Carolina.
Cruz dropped his G’s and appeared to adopt a heavier southern twang in an appearance with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Rep. Trey Gowdy for a town hall in Greenville on Monday.
Scott playfully ribbed Cruz for his education at schools such as Harvard and Princeton, but the senator’s elocution appeared aimed at a deep southern audience.
“Have you noticed that just about every one of these shootings happens in a gun-free zone?” Cruz said. “Ain’t nothin’ bad guys like better than a bunch of unarmed victims.”
The senator referenced the recent mass shooting at a black church in Charleston and said he would make certain that the nation’s servicemen and women have the right to bear arms.
Cruz’s town hall in South Carolina comes just as news broke that the senator surged five points ahead of Donald Trump in a Monmouth University poll of Iowan voters. Cruz rose 14 percentage points since Monmouth’s October survey and surpassed both Trump and Ben Carson for the top spot. The senator’s rise in the Hawkeye State can partially be attributed to support from religious conservatives, a voting bloc that Cruz paid lip service to again on Monday.
“Here’s the dynamic nationally: conservatives win when we effectively communicate what it is we believe in. Liberals win when they effectively obfuscate and lie about what they believe,” Cruz said. “This country is and remains a center-right country built on Judeo-Christian values.”
Cruz ranks second in the Washington Examiner‘s GOP presidential power rankings.
