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Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has received the endorsement of another prominent evangelical leader: Bishop E.W. Jackson, one of Virginia's most well-known African-American pastors, has backed the Texas Senator, citing his "authentic faith in Jesus Christ." According to a report from Conservative HQ Jackson, who is the senior pastor of Fall Church in Chesapeake, Virginia, explained his decision in a statement: "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...

A string of allied “super PACs” supporting the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is planning a $1 million television, digital and radio advertising buy in the early voting states, with the heaviest spending in Iowa, a spokeswoman for the group said. The super PACs, both collectively and individually called Keep the Promise, are flush with cash, and this spending is the biggest investment in television advertising that any of them have made this year. The ad buy includes television advertising in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. By midday Thursday, $700,000 was reserved for television time...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tells his volunteers about the need to energize and mobilize Christians. "If we awaken and energize the body of Christ - if Christians and people of faith come out and vote our values - we will win and we will turn the country around," Cruz told volunteers on a conference call Tuesday. Cruz also said that he is organizing a coalition of pastors in early states including Iowa and South Carolina. "We're working to have a lead pastor in each of the 99 counties in Iowa, 99 pastors are organizing other pastors," Cruz said. "We're doing...

Ted Cruz Tells Supporters to 'Strap on the Full Armor of God' for Expected Campaign Attacks: 'We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' Ted Cruz told presidential campaign supporters on a New Year's Eve phone call that the next 90 days could decide the election - and he warned them to prepare for an onslaught of attacks due to his recent surge in the polls."We're now in the final sprint," the Texas Republican senator said. "We're winning right now. And as a result, I want to tell everyone: Get ready. Strap on the full armor of God. Get ready for the attacks...

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,...