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Do supporters of the Christian right candidates Ted Cruz has eclipsed hate him so much they'd sabotage their own heroes? The late stages of the invisible primary would not be complete without reports of intrigue and skullduggery in Iowa, with campaigns forming tactical alliances against common enemies. We have one today from National Review's Tim Alberta and Eliana Johnson, who report that supporters of the last two caucus winners, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, are so bitter at being eclipsed by Ted Cruz that they are conspiring to block the Texan and instead elevate Marco Rubio. There's only one problem...

Recently, Donald Trump turned his guns on Ted Cruz (and by extension, on Marco Rubio) by questioning the authenticity of Cruz's Evangelical faith. He urged Iowa caucus goers to consider, when they cast their votes, that "not a lot of Evangelicals come out of Cuba" (see video at http://youtu.be/kFAQ3t2vbyw). On the face of the matter, Trump's comment was incredibly disrespectful and unmannerly. But just as importantly, it demonstrated his total ignorance (or intentional twisting) of the facts of Cruz's history and of Evangelical faith itself. First, Cruz never "came out of Cuba," having been born in Canada to an American...

Current and former leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention were reportedly in attendance for a two-day meeting in Texas to galvanize the Religious Right behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 presidential election.A Southern Baptist Convention official gave positive reviews to a private gathering of roughly 300 pastors and faith leaders aimed at consolidating religious conservatives to support Sen. Ted Cruz in the upcoming Republican presidential primaries. Paige Patterson Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, described remarks by Cruz to the two-day gathering at the Cisco, Texas, ranch of fracking billionaire Farris Wilks...

Bishop E.W. Jackson, one of Virginia's most well-known African-American pastors, and the Republican Party's 2013 nominee for Lt. Governor has endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for President. In making the endorsement Bishop Jackson said, "It is absolutely essential and urgent that we elect a Godly President who reveres our Constitution, honors our Judeo-Christian values and respects the freedom of the American people. After eight years of 'fundamental transformation,' we need a leader who will dedicate himself to restoring the fundamentals of America. I urge every American, but especially Christians, to elect Ted Cruz as the next President of the United States." Bishop Jackson went on to note...

It bothered me to hear my favorite candidate, Donald Trump, seem to seek to question Ted Cruz evangelical bona fides by saying, not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba. I was going to tweet and advise him not to go there. Then I thought 'Donald Trump is a smart guy' maybe he knows something I don't know.. So I began looking for 'evidence' that Ted Cruz is a 'born again' Christian. You know a person can 'identify' as anything now days. Just because you go to church and mentally agree with Christianity doesn't mean you have come to know...

Read these two quotes carefully: The first: “Cruz cannot win because the Washington elites despise him.” The second goes: “[T]here are a lot of good candidates – I like nearly all of them… …except Cruz.” Which one of the similar quotes is from a pro-Cruz Super PAC and which is from a former Republican nominee for president?  The first quote is from an ad from Keep the Promise I, a Cruz Super PAC.  The second is from Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee and war hero, who got trounced by Bill Clinton. Both purport to highlight a negative of Senator...

Ted Cruz has assembled an impressive presidential campaign structure in Iowa, veteran political observers here say, with one going so far as to describe Cruz’s campaign as perhaps "the most sophisticated" the first in the nation caucus state has ever witnessed. Because of that grass roots organization, Cruz is primed to maintain his recent surge in the polls and win the Iowa Republican caucuses in five weeks, those observers say. Cruz, the Tea Party firebrand and first term U.S. Sen. from Texas, was the first Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, on March 23. Nine months later, he has...

DES MOINES | Ted Cruz has assembled an impressive presidential campaign structure in Iowa, veteran political observers here say, with one going so far as to describe Cruz's campaign as perhaps "the most sophisticated" the first-in-the-nation caucus state has ever witnessed.Because of that grassroots organization, Cruz is primed to maintain his recent surge in the polls and win the Iowa Republican caucuses in five weeks, those observers say.Cruz, a tea party firebrand and first-term U.S. senator from Texas, was the first Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, on March 23. Nine months later, he has overtaken longtime front-runner Donald...

The Rev. Franklin Graham quitting the Republican Party poses a significant blow to the GOP's 2016 White House aspirations, especially if other evangelical pastors follow suit and their millions-plus congregations stay away from the polls. Graham suggested earlier this week that the last straw was congressional Republicans funding Planned Parenthood in the recently passed, $1.8 trillion tax-and-spending package, despite revelations about the group harvesting fetal tissue. However, he made clear Wednesday night that the funding was only part of the reason he left the GOP to become an independent. "It's not just that," Graham said on Fox News' "On the...

Leaders of the Christian right have found their man: Ted Cruz. In the past two weeks, the Texas senator has wracked up a string of high-profile endorsements from influential evangelical leaders, including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown, and Family Leader chief Bob Vander Plaats. According to the National Review, many more are on the way.

It’s one of the most intriguing sub-plots of the 2016 election: Why are evangelicals, who historically have supported immigration reform and a path to citizenship for deeply felt religious and moral reasons, gravitating towards the two candidates who are most hostile to policy changes that would accommodate and integrate undocumented immigrants into American life? Cruz has been working behind the scenes to line up the support of influential evangelical leaders around the country, and it has been paying off: he has already rolled out some big endorsements, and many more are set to come. Meanwhile, Cruz and Donald Trump have...

Ted Cruz is beginning to surge significantly in the polls in Iowa. Surely the evangelicals in Iowa are the key factor. Already, some of the political pundits are writing him off, likening him to Barry Goldwater, the libertarian-leaning firebrand, who was soundly defeated by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Goldwater lost by a landslide. But, by the same token, Ronald Reagan won by landslides in 1980 and in 1984. And Reagan was perhaps more conservative than Goldwater. The question many are asking about Ted Cruz and his conservative values is: Will he be the new Goldwater or the new Reagan? Reagan...

Las Vegas -- Mike Huckabee, a longtime ally of Evangelical leader Tony Perkins and other conservative leaders who last week secretly voted to endorse Ted Cruz for president, says it's "disappointing" the group decided to back a relative newcomer like Cruz. In a brief interview here following Tuesday's Republican presidential debate, Huckabee says he was made aware of the group's decision, but wasn't given any explanation. "For reasons I don't fully understand, years and years of actually doing something and getting things done didn't matter," Huckabee said of the group's deliberations. "And I don't understand that." Perkins said in an...

WASHINGTON : Sen. Ted Cruz says he doesn't pay much attention to labels of "GOP rock star," despite a flattering interview with the evangelical Christian Broadcasting Network portraying him as a rising force with faith and family at heart. Cruz, a Southern Baptist, discussed the central role faith plays in his life. "Life, liberty, and property, the fundamental natural rights of man are given to every one of us by God, and the role of government fundamentally is to protect those rights," he said. Cruz described faith not as organized religion, but as "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as...

So we have got a new poll out from Quinnipiac University looking at Iowa. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% has just taken over the Real Clear Politics lead in Iowa by a hair, a finding of Donald Trump 28, Cruz 27 is not surprising at all. What is interesting though is to see who is winning Iowa’s conservatives, and who is winning the moderates.It turns out it is not even close. Cruz wins TEA Party Republicans 45-26 and Very Conservative Republicans 34-24. It is among the center and left wings of the party that Trump takes over: Somewhat Conservatives are...

Iowa pollster says Evangelicals the KEY to Ted Cruz's 'SPECTACULAR' 'UNPRECEDENTED' rise! J. Ann Selzer of the polling firm that reported Ted Cruz’s “spectacular and unprecedented” surge in Iowa this weekend tried to explain just how they did it.Watch below:Iowa Pollster Responds To Donald Trump's Claims | MSNBC (Video)Selzer says the real key to his surge is that he’s been targeting Evangelicals, and they have a strong record of showing up disproportionately to vote in the Iowa caucus. Clearly el Trumpo sees him as a threat and understands this Christian dimension because he tried to undermine his faith on Friday,...

Yesterday we reported that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz seemed to be preparing to go to war with each other. A few hours later, however, Cruz himself responded on Twitter by saying that, although the media would love to see a cage match between himself and the billionaire businessman, he won't play along. That could -- and by all means should -- have been the end of it. Sadly it is not. Trump can also read polls and understands that Cruz poses a serious threat to him in Iowa. And so the cage match has started, whether Cruz likes it...

After a week of tension between the two Republican presidential candidates, front-runner Donald Trump took a shot at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Friday, saying that “oil companies pay him a lot of money.” “With ethanol [Cruz has] gotta come a long way,” Trump said in Des Moines, Iowa. "He’s right now for the oil. But I understand if oil pays him a lot of money, he’s gotta be for oil. Right?”  “But I’m with you,” Trump told his supporters, noting he toured ethanol plants in Iowa last month. "If Ted Cruz is against ethanol, how does he win...

The Texas senator's campaign is beginning to see returns after months of methodically courting evangelical leaders.Ted Cruz increasingly looks like the man to beat in Iowa. He's rising in the polls, building on an already extensive field organization and locking down critical conservative endorsements.Among the biggest yet came Thursday, when Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the conservative group Family Leader, came out for Cruz, citing what he sees as electability in Iowa and nationally. "This is a guy that's been very consistent in principles, in communications, and his campaign has shown ability to slowly gain ground and build momentum,...

At Nate Silver's 538.com, they describe the Republican electorate as a five-ring circus, composed of Libertarian, Tea Party, Evangelical, Establishment, and Moderate voters. A candidate who can bring three of the rings together will be the winner. Ted Cruz is the one who's doing it. With his pastor/father Rafael leading the way, Cruz has taken the lead among Iowa religious voters away from Ben Carson. Their affection for the fervently Christian Carson is not enough to overcome his obvious weakness as a commander in chief. Santorum and Huckabee are his other competitors in this ring, and neither has Cruz's money...