MADISON, Wis. — Before taking a break from the Wisconsin race with a West Coast fundraising-and-Jimmy-Kimmel swing, on Wednesday Ted Cruz held what his campaign billed as a “‘Women for Cruz’ Coalition Rollout with Ted and Heidi Cruz, Eleanor Darragh, and Carly Fiorina.” Darragh is Cruz’s mother, so the event featured the candidate’s wife, mother and top female endorser, as well as cameos from Cruz’s two young daughters, Caroline and Catherine. Conservative faith-and-family author and commentator Rebecca Hagelin rounded out the group as moderator.
Campaign sources say the “Women for Cruz” event had been contemplated for quite a while, but only came together in Wisconsin. More skeptical sorts might suggest the recent National Enquirer story alleging, without evidence, that Cruz has had a number of extramarital affairs had something to do with the scheduling. Plus, presenting Cruz with the women in his life extolling his fine qualities could only heighten the contrast with Donald Trump, who appears to have done enormous damage to his chances in Wisconsin with an out-of-the-blue attack on Heidi Cruz and a variety of intemperate statements relating to women — and all that is aside from the criminal charges against Trump’s campaign manager for grabbing a female reporter’s arm at a news conference earlier this month.
Whatever the case, the purpose of the day was to talk about Cruz’s new Wisconsin campaign theme — “Jobs, Freedom, Security” — in the context of women voters. “He believes all issues are women’s issues,” Hagelin said. “We’re not relegated to talk about just certain issues … he respects that policy affects all of us.”
“Women, every bit as much as men, care about jobs, freedom and security,” Cruz told the group.
For example, Cruz explained, women’s concerns about freedom have to do not just with issues like life and marriage, but the Second Amendment as well. “One of the most fun things I got to do on the campaign was take my darling wife Heidi — we were up in New Hampshire — to a firing range,” Cruz said. “Now, Heidi is a California native. But an image that I will always love is a picture of her firing a full auto machine gun with a pink hat that said ‘Armed and Beautiful.'”
Cruz paid repeated tribute to “my angel Heidi,” devoting less time to her career at Goldman Sachs than to her “servant’s heart.” And she, in turn, vouched for Cruz to women deciding which candidate to support.
“I want all of the women here in Wisconsin and across this country to know how incredibly supportive Ted … has always been of all the women in his life,” Heidi Cruz said. “I need you to know why I fell in love with him. It’s not because of how smart he is, or what I thought he might be someday. It is because of how incredibly thoughtful he is of all the women in his life. And I want you to know as voters that he will be equally thoughtful of you and supportive of your families and putting you first.”
The “Women for Cruz” rollout came on a day in which Cruz became the clear front-runner in the Wisconsin Republican race. Political types had been waiting for a new poll from Marquette University Law School, generally viewed as definitive around here, and when it came out Wednesday morning, Cruz had a solid lead, with 40 percent of the vote, to Trump’s 30 percent and John Kasich’s 21 percent.
Whatever the motivation for Wednesday’s event, Cruz doesn’t suffer from a gender gap. He is at 40 percent with men and 39 percent with women in the Marquette poll, which is consistent with Cruz’s performance in earlier races. For example, Cruz was at 29 percent with men and 27 percent with women in Iowa, 22 percent with both men and women in South Carolina, and 34 percent with men and 35 percent with women in Oklahoma, all according to exit polls.
Cruz has certainly benefited from Trump’s mistakes where women are concerned. In particular, Team Cruz believes Trump’s attack on Heidi Cruz has proved very costly with a wide range of Republican voters in Wisconsin. (Nationally, even Trump supporters Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich slammed him for it.)
But a bigger factor in Cruz’s lead in Wisconsin might have less to do with gender than the likelihood that the state is simply not unhappy enough to vote for Trump.
Look at two questions in the Marquette poll. The first is whether the respondent’s family is “living comfortably, just getting by, or struggling to make ends meet.” A slight majority of voters, 51 percent, said they are living comfortably, while 38 percent said they are just getting by, and 10 percent said they are struggling. So more said they are living comfortably than not.
In the second question, Marquette asked voters to respond to two statements: “This country is a place where if you work hard and follow the rules you can provide for your family and have a decent life,” and “Hard work and following the rules are no longer enough to provide a decent life for a family.” A solid majority, 59 percent, agreed with the first statement, while 38 percent chose the second. If most voters believed the system was rigged against them, and were frustrated about it, those results would likely be reversed.
The numbers suggest that Wisconsin voters just don’t see the country’s situation in as negative a light as Trump portrays it. They feel they’re doing well enough financially, and they mostly believe they’ll be rewarded if they work hard. Add to that Trump’s missteps and the relentless campaign against him by some of Wisconsin’s top conservative radio figures, and the state appears poised to put the brakes on the Trump phenomenon, at least for a while.
