Cruz’s two problems in Iowa: Trump — and Canada

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is a good Houston lawyer and preacher’s son.

But America’s evangelical Christian voters may want a warrior, particularly one who will fight believers’ battles while spending his own money.

As Republican presidential debates start unreeling like TV sitcom episodes — four in less than a month, ending in Houston on Feb. 25 — Cruz’s strategy of uniting faith-and-values conservatives and finding 10 million more has run into an Iowa snowbank.

Cruz will do well there, but not as well as he should with church leaders’ near-solid support.

In a year when voters despise the establishment, that also seems to go for evangelical conservatives and their political establishment.

Instead of rallying faith voters behind him as the next Ronald Reagan, Cruz is splitting those Iowa votes equally with ecumenical Presbyterian Donald J. Trump, at least according to several polls including one from North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling that sheds more light.

Only one-third of Iowa Republicans believe that someone born in another country (such as Cruz) should be president, according to the PPP poll.

The harshest judges of Cruz’s Canadian birthplace were supporters of fellow evangelicals Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum, winners in Iowa the last two election cycles but guests Thursday night at Trump’s counterdebate charity event.

Six months ago, Cruz’s biggest worry seemed to be political outsider Ben Carson, who was still running third among Iowa evangelicals before the strong debate performance Thursday by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“Cruz knew the potential” for a volatile outside candidate like a Trump, University of Houston professor Richard Murray wrote by email. But Cruz had the best-organized campaign, and planned to swamp Huckabee, Rubio and Santorum in Iowa “and then pick up the pieces when Carson imploded.”

“That would give him a big win, he’d probably finish top-three in New Hampshire, and then he’d break away,” Murray said, with wins in South Carolina on Feb. 20 and then Texas and other Super Tuesday states March 1.

Instead, Carson and Rubio still have a large share of votes that might be Cruz’s, and Trump has shown unexpected patience for campaigning while gaining support from evangelicals hungry for a victory.

“We now know Trump is not a political idiot,” Murray wrote, “but a superb showman with the best skills for modern media we have seen. … Equally likely is that Trump wins all three [early states] and has huge momentum on March 1.”

That’s when they come to Texas.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 8:06 AM with the headline "Cruz’s two problems in Iowa: Trump — and Canada."