Ted Cruz told reporters in Iowa he wants future Republican presidential debates to include moderators that would vote in a GOP primary.
The Texas senator said he believes such a change to the current debates’ structure would benefit voters in advance of next year’s primaries. He proposed this change after stumping at the Iowa Growth and Opportunity forum in Des Moines on Saturday.
“On the Democratic side, if you’re a Democrat, every Democratic primary debate is moderated typically by liberal Democrats and so the questions that are asked are frankly questions that a liberal Democrat would want to know,” Cruz told reporters. “On the Republican side … it’s a little bit like Mars and Venus. If you don’t, if you’re not making that decision yourself, if you’re not a conservative, you haven’t known many conservatives, the questions you ask are not the questions actually conservative voters care about.”
The senator’s remarks come amid reports that representatives from several GOP presidential campaigns will meet this weekend in Washington, D.C., to craft a strategy to make future debates more palatable to their liking and the voters they seek to gain. Cruz rose to third in the Washington Examiner‘s most recent GOP presidential power rankings, which were updated after Wednesday’s debate.
The Washington Examiner’s David Drucker contributed reporting from Des Moines, Iowa, for this article.
