When Donald Trump announced he had scored Sarah Palin’s endorsement, he praised her role in helping Republicans “regain historic majorities” and “launch the careers of several key future leaders of the Republican Party and conservative movement.”
The Trump then included this little nugget: “Sen. Ted Cruz notes: ‘I would not be in the United States Senate were it not for Gov. Sarah Palin … She can pick winners.'”
Ouch. But the truth is, the Trump campaign didn’t need to reach that far back. “Without her support, I wouldn’t be in the Senate,” Cruz tweeted Tuesday.
The Cruz team’s initial reaction to rumors that Palin was going to endorse Trump was to launch a pre-emptive strike. Why should a conservative leader like Palin endorse someone with Trump’s questionable conservative credentials?
“I think it [would] 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,” said Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler.
This framing was a mistake. Her daughter Bristol Palin described it as a “slam” and an attack, saying it was why people dislike Cruz. She claimed to be out of the loop on her mother’s political calculations, but now hoped Mama Grizzly would endorse Trump.
Cruz’s campaign clearly knew it was an error, because the Texas senator corrected the record on Twitter. He expressed gratitude for Palin’s 2012 Senate endorsement and said he would remain a fan no matter who she endorsed this year — further elevating the former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor in the process.
Palin is no longer at the peak of her influence. But she still has a following among evangelicals and Tea Party conservatives, two groups that in Iowa favor Cruz over Trump. If she can help move some of those voters, it could be significant in a close race.
It also has the potential to blunt the “New York values” line of criticism against Trump. Palin is very much a red state figure.
And while Trump doesn’t need much help in this area, the slow build-up of the Palin endorsement rumors throughout the day helped the Republican front-runner win yet another news cycle.
A lot can and will happen between now and Iowa, but Tuesday wasn’t a great day for Cruz.
