Posted on 11/25/2015 9:32:37 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The religious right may be yesterday’s news, but its signal accomplishment, the white evangelical voting bloc, remains the Republican Party’s most important constituency. And it’s moving toward Ted Cruz.
The latest numbers from Iowa show Cruz neck and neck with Donald Trump thanks to evangelical support. According to Quinnipiac, it’s now Trump at 25 percent, Cruz at 23 percent, and Ben Carson slipping to 18 percent among all likely Republican caucus-goers. White evangelicals, who make up 60 percent of them, now favor Cruz over Carson, 27 percent to 24 percent, with Trump at 20 percent.
And as white evangelicals in Iowa go, so goes Evangelical Nation.
Cruz’s surge is no accident. As the Washington Post‘s Kate Zezima made clear in a fine piece of political reporting the other day, he has made appealing to evangelicals the centerpiece of his campaign strategy. The Baptist son of a popular Baptist minister, he announced his candidacy at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in March and he’s dedicated himself to lining up evangelical bigwigs.
He has no hesitancy about campaigning on the social issues of the day, denouncing the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision and standing up for Kentucky county clergy Kim Davis. On the church circuit, he uses the meme popularized a decade ago by Karl Rove: If all those evangelicals who didn’t come to the polls last time just turn out, the presidency is ours in a cakewalk.
“If 10 million more evangelical Christians show up in November 2016, we’re not going to be staying up until 3 in the morning wondering what happened in Ohio or Florida,†Cruz told a Baptist congregation in South Carolina earlier this month. “They’ll call the election at 8:35 p.m. That’s what 10 million more evangelical Christians at the polls will do.â€
The problem is, it’s not going to happen. The white evangelical vote that has sustained the GOP since the rise of the religious right half a century ago is a shrinking portion of the electorate, as the following graphic dramatically demonstrates.
Bottom line? As the Democratic-voting Nones grow up and become frequent voters, the white evangelical base of the GOP is aging out. So if Ted Cruz manages to ride his evangelical strategy to the Republican nomination, the general election will make him a victim of his success.
False.
What that graphic shows is people BECOMING evangelical Christian during their lives.
That’s the evangelism part.
This is very much a tunnel vision analysis. It assumes that Cruz will grow only evangelical Christians, neglecting possible inroads with White and Hispanic Catholics as well.
It also relies on past voter turnout models. But will Hillary be able to generate the same level of turnout as Obama from the 2012 coalition? Will Cruz (or any Republican) not be able to generate more than Romney’s turnout?
Another reason Iowa shouldn't be getting all the publicity each election cycle. Look up their track record.
Huckabee won Iowa with evangelical support in 2008.
Santorum won Iowa with evangelical support in 2012.
Both went down to defeat in the more expensive and bigger states to come later. It looks like any candidate can win Iowa by persuading the evangelicals.
Ted Cruz, unlike Sweater Vest and Huckleberry, has money in the bank and a nationwide organization.
So what are we really looking at from Evangelicals, 20% (+/-) ?
Throw in a few percent of the cafeteria religious types and it’s 25% ish ?
Ben Carson can talk about Jefferson writing the Constitution, but the American people are too uninformed to know that this is untrue.
Neither Huckabee nor Santorum had the money or the organization or the ground game to mount effective fights in the other states. Cruz HAS more hard cash on hand than anyone else including Bush. He also has the best organization and the best ground game in the early primary states than anyone else. Not to mention most GOP nominees including George W Bush have won Iowa.
Reuters rolling poll nov 15-20
Please do not compare George W Bush with Ted Cruz. Entirely different candidates. GWB had very broad support from GOPe. Cruz has none. GWB was popular among moderates and independents. Cruz’s support is more from evangelicals and very conservative voters. Also, GWB did not have a Trump like candidate to contend with.
This is a real concern. Would Romney get a better turnout if he were to get the nomination again? Doubtful. If he couldn't get it versus an Obama second term, why would Bernie or Mrs. Clinton be any different.
GOP needs to listen very carefully to its voters. Those who sat out last time aren't beyond doing it again. They repeatedly say so. It's a candidates job to *earn* votes. If the GOP nominee can't (or won't), it does no good for the GOP to insist "there's no other place to go" and hope it all turns out OK.
Again, you compared GWB victory in Iowa to Cruz. I shook GWB’s hand when he was in Portland, OR. Cruz is no GWB. Actually GWB recently said he dislikes Cruz. That means nothing coming from GWB, but it does reflect on their different agenda’s.
As for poll numbers in latest Reuters poll, Trump is at 38, Cruz is 11.5. For someone who can understand statistics, that is a pretty wide gap. Do you agree? But do not give up hope. Hope springs eternal, as they say.
Again, I didn't. I pointed out that historically, the winning GOP candidate has won in Iowa including Bush. That's it.
The comparison that makes sense is when there's an open race for the nomination. If there's an incumbent Republican President, that's who's most likely to win the caucus and the nomination.
Six open races since 1976. Two caucus winners went on to win the nomination (Dole 1996, Bush 2000). Four didn't (Bush 1980, Dole 1988, Huckabee 2008, Santorum, 2012).
Of course, Dole was from a neighboring state and that probably helped him win Iowa, but it doesn't look like the state is that great a predictor of who will win the nomination.
The Reuters poll is an outlier, totally out of whack with the RCP average here. Trump is a massive over 10% higher in Reuters poll than the RCP average. I'll take the RCP average thank you.
www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html
Also I note that you deliberately chose to use the old Reuters poll where Cruz is lower than Rubio and Carson, instead of today's Reuters poll where Cruz has overtaken both of the them
Only reason I used the few days older poll because I could post the graphics. I did not have a chance to create graphics for the latest poll.
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