In nearly every presidential primary, a few candidates attract a lot of news media attention even though they have almost no chance to win the nomination. Sometimes they even lead national polls or win states, but invariably their appeal is too narrow to allow them to build the broad coalition necessary to unite a diverse party.
Ted Cruz, the Texas senator and Tea Party favorite, who on Monday became the first major candidate to formally enter the race, has seemingly been on track for this role since he first ran for the Senate in 2012. He is the darling of conservatives in a conservative party. But he remains a long shot, at best.
The most interesting question about Mr. Cruz’s candidacy is whether he has a very small chance to win or no chance at all.
Political scientists argue that the single most important determinant of the outcome of the nomination is support from party elites: those operatives who can staff a winning campaign; the donors who fund it; the elected officials, influencers and interest group leaders who bestow the credibility necessary to persuade voters and affect media coverage.
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Senator Ted Cruz brought his daughters, Catherine, 4, right, and Caroline, 6, on stage at Liberty University on Sunday during a walk-through for his speech Monday, when he will start his presidential campaign. Credit Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
The candidate with the most support from party elites doesn’t always win the nomination, but support from elites is probably a prerequisite for victory.
“A candidate without substantial party support has never won the nomination,†said John Zaller, a political-science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of four authors of “The Party Decides,†an influential work on the role of parties in the nominating process.
Mr. Cruz has done nothing to endear himself to the elites. In April 2013, he was identified as “The Most Hated Man in the Senate†by Foreign Policy magazine, which described him as “the human equivalent of one of those flower-squirters that clowns wear on their lapels.†And that was before he led an ill-fated government shutdown over the Affordable Care Act. If you did a web search for “Senators Hate Ted Cruz†on Sunday, that Foreign Policy article wouldn’t have even come up on the first Google page. It was supplanted by titles like “Why Senate Republicans Hate Ted Cruz,†“GOP Still Despises Ted Cruz,†“Everybody Hates Ted Cruz†and the generously titled “How Unpopular Is Ted Cruz Right Now?†Answer: Very.
A candidate with this sort of reputation is not going to have a serious shot at the nomination. If most conservative officials, operatives, leaders and pundits won’t take him seriously, voters won’t either. The elites would rally to defeat such a candidate if he ever seemed poised to win.
I can already hear the conservative, grass-roots activists complaining about this establishment, elite-driven model of Republican primary politics. I can hear them promising to prove the mainstream news media, and every one of Mr. Cruz’s detractors, wrong. But much of the Republican rank-and-file has reached the same conclusion as the party’s elite, whether they’ve done so because of elite signaling or by some other means.
Just 40 percent of Republicans in an NBC/WSJ poll last month said they could see themselves supporting Mr. Cruz, while 38 percent said they couldn’t. That two-point margin in the plus column was the second worst of any of the elected officials who are thought to be major contenders for the nomination. Only Chris Christie fared worse.
Despite considerable national media attention, Mr. Cruz holds only about 6 percent of the vote in national polls. Early national polls aren’t exactly predictive, but every presidential nominee since 1976 except Bill Clinton has reached about 15 percent of the vote by this point in the campaign.
The point isn’t that Mr. Cruz’s low level of support precludes him from winning the nomination. But he clearly hasn’t entered the race as the favorite of conservatives, and there isn’t much reason to assume that he will eventually become the favorite. The fight for conservatives will be hotly contested. Viable candidates with a far more plausible shot to win the nomination, like Scott Walker and Marco Rubio, or even Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry, will all be competing for these voters. Mr. Walker’s early surge is a telling reminder that the conservative grass roots aren’t just interested in finding an arch-conservative, but in finding a conservative who can win.
That’s not to say Mr. Cruz wouldn’t still play a role in the nominating process. He’s intelligent and a charismatic speaker. It wouldn’t be surprising if he managed to build a base of support in Iowa, where 47 percent of potential Republican caucus goers identified as “very conservative†in 2012.
If he did manage to gain momentum in Iowa, it would have real consequences for the race. In a fractious party like today’s G.O.P., the outcome of a presidential primary can turn on the strength of factional candidates who can easily deny states or voters to a more viable alternative. Think of Mike Huckabee in 2008, who denied Mitt Romney a win in Iowa and therefore weakened a candidate who might have otherwise been positioned to defeat John McCain.
If Mr. Cruz won Iowa, he would deny a more mainstream candidate the opportunity to become the primary challenger to Jeb Bush. Even if Mr. Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he could conceivably draw enough conservative voters to give a candidate like Rand Paul or Mr. Bush a real shot to win the Iowa caucuses instead of someone like Scott Walker.
If Mr. Cruz won Iowa, he probably still wouldn’t have much of a shot at the nomination. He would face relentless criticism from other Republicans. His opponents would probably coalesce around anyone else to stop him.
You could perhaps conjure a scenario in which Mr. Cruz pulls it off. The Republican Party is conservative and populist, and Mr. Bush is hardly a perfect fit for the primary electorate. Forty-two percent of voters say they could not see themselves supporting him. Mr. Cruz runs a reasonable campaign, presents himself in a manner more in line with his Princeton-Harvard Law pedigree (he was a champion college debater), and ultimately earns grudging acceptance from party elites.
Maybe this isn’t impossible. But it’s hard to say it’s likely. Mr. Cruz’s appeal to the party’s most conservative voters will probably cement the opposition of the rest of the party. Mr. Bush will work to address the concerns of conservatives. And many candidates — like Mr. Walker and Mr. Rubio — will be better positioned to exploit whatever reservations about Mr. Bush remain.
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