Former Alaska Gov. and 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is set to endorse the Republican 2016 front-runner Donald Trump Tuesday evening.
“I am greatly honored to receive Sarah’s endorsement,” Trump said in a statement. “She is a friend, and a high quality person whom I have great respect for. I am proud to have her support.”
“I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States of America,” Palin said.
The endorsement, which comes with less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, will be announced in Ames, Iowa, where Palin will be joining Trump at a campaign rally that will be his third event.
Palin’s support of Trump comes at the expense of Sen. Ted Cruz, who is in a near tie with Trump as the two battle for the hearts and minds of Iowans. Palin gave Cruz a boost in his 2012 Senate contest, endorsing him during his insurgent campaign during the primary. She backed Rand Paul in Kentucky’s Republican senatorial primary in 2010.
When John McCain selected Palin as his running mate in 2008, he electrified conservatives who weren’t excited about his candidacy. Palin’s speech to the Republican National Convention that year was widely praised on the right. Palin emerged as one of the leading figures in the Tea Party after Barack Obama won the general election. She frequently entered competitive GOP primaries and endorsed Tea Party-backed conservative candidates.
The Cruz campaign pre-emptively slammed the endorsement Monday, calling it “a blow to” Palin herself,” adding that it would be “deeply disappointing.”
“I think it’d be a blow to Sarah Palin, because Sarah Palin has been a champion for the conservative cause, and if she was going to endorse Donald Trump, sadly, she would be endorsing someone who’s held progressive views all their life on the sanctity of life, on marriage, on partial-birth abortion,” Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told CNN.
“He was a TARP [supporter] — and it goes on and on and on,” Tyler said. “Donald Trump claims he’s changed all those views, but … if it was Sarah Palin, let me just say I’d be deeply disappointed.”
Cruz has surged in Iowa on the strength of evangelical and Tea Party voters. Palin’s endorsement could help Trump win some of those voters back. Recent polls have showed Trump and Cruz locked in a dead heat in Iowa. Cruz and Trump are first and second in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings.
