On Monday, Ted Cruz will be the first Republican to make his bid for president official, but going first likely will not give him a leg up toward winning his party’s nomination.
More realistically, Cruz’s decision to jump in ahead of other Republicans, at least technically, might give him a flash of publicity and momentum at a time when he is looking to find a foothold in a broad, competitive primary field. And there is little disadvantage to announcing a bid a few weeks earlier than others, whereas declaring one’s candidacy too late can be damaging.
“It’s rare that you’re sitting around waiting for election results to come in, wishing you’d had less time,” said Stuart Stevens, a former senior adviser to Mitt Romney.
Cruz is expected to announce his candidacy for president at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., a traditional stop for Republicans courting the Christian right that is within driving distance from Washington. Because of the Senate’s work schedule, Cruz will not immediately follow his announcement with a wider rollout across key primary states, as many candidates do — lending a sense of hurriedness to Cruz’s announcement.
But Cruz needs to plant his flag early. Although he is the son of a pastor, he is by no means the obvious choice for the Christian-conservative segment of the party: Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal also have laid claim to the religious right and could siphon off some of Cruz’s support.
Also weighing on Cruz is a perplexing polling problem: Although he is relatively well known among the Republican base, Cruz continues to poll in the low single digits, which indicates he is disliked by many of those people who are familiar with him. A CNN/ORC poll last month showed Cruz with the support of 4 percent of Republican voters nationally, down from 7 percent in November 2014.
Of course, Cruz has built his national brand precisely on his polarizing stances and has shown an uncanny ability to set the baseline for the right, as with his efforts to block funding for Obamacare and the president’s executive action on immigration.
The question is whether that success setting policy for conservatives can carry over into a presidential campaign, when the stakes are much higher.
There is some concern among more moderate Republicans that, should Cruz’s candidacy catch fire, he could compel other candidates to move more toward the right. Democrats have already begun to attempt to drive this narrative.
Cruz “is everything voters hate about the modern Republican Party in one candidate, and the entire field is already signing on to his positions,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of the Democratic group American Bridge.
And, even as Cruz’s firebrand persona has won him plaudits from the base, it has not earned him a base of big party donors. Whereas former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has spent months collecting $1 million checks across the country, Cruz will need to take a more balanced approach to fundraising, leaning less on the very rich.
“I view the Jeb operation as, they’re going to have all the money they need,” Cruz said during a dinner with former ambassador John Bolton last month, “whereas we need sufficient grassroots support to get the message out.”
That fundraising effort will begin in earnest Monday, when Cruz will legally be able to raise more money than he has as a senator merely “exploring” a bid for president.
