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(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) had a simple response to Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly when she asked him whether he could win the presidency: Look at 2012. That was the year in which Cruz, then Texas's solicitor general, was elected to the Senate. “We brought together conservatives and libertarians and evangelicals and women and young people and Hispanics and Reagan Democrats,” Cruz said of that race. To which I say: Who knows? The reason for the uncertainty is that there was no exit poll in 2012 in Texas. It was one of 19 states where the broadcast networks and the...

The horse race for 2016 is several months old now, so it might surprise you that no presidential candidate left the gate before today. That changes with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas declaring for the presidency later today in a speech at Liberty University. He made it official this morning...

He sure does, says Team Cruz. But the key to victory, Cruz advisers believe, is to be the second choice of enough voters in the party’s libertarian and social conservative wings to cobble together a coalition to defeat the chosen candidate of the Republican establishment… To them, the Republican primaries are a series of single-elimination brackets where the four GOP leaders who best represent the party’s libertarian, establishment, social conservative and tea party wings will survive as the field winnows. Cruz will vie for the support of the tea party electorate, his advisers say, but will fare well enough with...

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...

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report is somewhat baffled. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll gave Republican voters a list of potential presidential candidates and asked whether the voters could support each candidate in the primaries. On that measure, Marco Rubio finished first. And yet when pollsters have asked GOP voters to name a top pick, Rubio inevitably finishes far from the top. Why is that? And why is Scott Walker doing better? Walter writes: Yet, if Rubio’s got such obvious advantages, why is he stuck in the low single digits while Walker has become a “co-frontrunner” with Bush?...

For those of you who watch Bret Baier every night on Fox,lately he has been asking his panel of "All Stars" to place their evening bets on the GOP and sometimes the Democrat race. Instead of betting $100.00, lets up it to $200.00 and bet on the 5 to 7 candidates for President. Odds are Cruz,Walker and Rubio will get most of the money and Hillary in the lower tier.Feel free to throw in O'Malley,Warren,Biden,Christie etc.

COLUMBIA, S.C.—On his inaugural trip to South Carolina as a presidential candidate, Scott Walker is trying hard to show that he shares the cultural values – and tastes – of the region that serves as the heart of the modern Republican Party. He even started peppering his stump speech with some “y’all”s for the occasion. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/scott-walker-makes-2016-south-carolina-debut-116246.html#ixzz3Usutrtiw

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2015/03/19/4195411/early-line-3-man-race-for-2016.html

From the Morning Jolt: Why the Rush to Pick a Favorite in the 2016 Field? Breitbart.com’s Matt Boyle goes in to overdrive, insisting that Scott Walker is ensnared in a massive, race-changing scandal because his newly-hired strategist, Liz Mair, has… er, dual citizenship.* (Hey, if that’s a big deal, what about Ted Cruz’s former dual-citizenship status? What, is the senator some sleeper agent for the poutine menace? “The Manitoban Candidate”?) This morning, Liz Mair departed Scott Walker’s campaign – presumably not because of her dual-citizenship status than from the vocal whining from Iowa Republican Party officials over her previous mockery...

It is March, as you know, which means that media outlets such as ours use interest in the upcoming NCAA college basketball tournament as an excuse to develop imaginary brackets of other important contests. In part, this is because we are not bound by the stupid rules that govern advertisers, so we can refer to the Final Four™ without having to pay money to the NCAA (which, we assume, then gets distributed among the players or something). In fact, we can write Final Four™ without the trademark if we want. Final Four. Final Four. Pretty great. But, in part, this...

Our friends over at Hot Air have conducted a 2016 Republican primary poll and the results are instructive, if not earth-shattering. And yet you’re probably wondering to yourselves why the hell is he blogging about this. I’ll tell you why: Because polls such as these survey a specific kind of audience. That is to say, I suspect most people who regularly read Hot Air (and care enough to participate in their surveys) represent the base of the party. They strike me as informed, conservative Republicans who can give us greater insight into who the most popular and likable conservative candidates...

You have to give a certain amount of credit to politicians who are able to maintain a level of consistency, if nothing else. Stopping in New Hampshire, Jeb Bush was faced with yet another series of questions on the subject which seems to have sunk his prospects with conservatives this cycle. When asked yet again about a possible path to citizenship for illegals and a chance to “come out of the shadows” in an orderly fashion, Bush doubled down and let all of you haters out there know that he’s the grown up in the room here. Jeb Bush said...

Public Policy Polling's most recent Wisconsin poll — released on March 10 — shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker with increased enthusiasm among Republicans in the state for his White House bid. But Walker trails well behind Hillary Clinton in a potential general election contest for the presidency. PPP's poll of Wisconsin voters found 35 percent in the state want Walker to run for president, compared to 58 percent who don't think he should run. The poll also shows that Walker's approval numbers have dipped over the past few months. Before the midterm election in November 2014, his approval spread was...

A new survey of conservative activists shows many in the movement see Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as the strongest Republican to take on Hillary Clinton in 2016. The survey wasn't scientific. But conservative activist group ForAmerica surveyed almost 10,000 of its Facebook members and more than 32 percent said Walker has the "best shot at beating Hillary Clinton" in the field, according to results shared first with National Journal. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who has never held elected office, finished in second, with nearly 25 percent of the vote. Sen. Ted Cruz (14 percent), Sen. Rand Paul (6.6 percent) and...

A question I often am asked is: "Who would you bet on to win the presidency?" Personally, I don't bet on politics, but here's my current take on the 2016 presidential race—with, of course, the caveat that we don't know which campaigns will turn out the best in terms of organization, strategy, tactics, or execution, much less which candidates will step on land mines along the way. The Democratic nomination appears fairly straightforward. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now the prohibitive favorite. If her early stumbles during her book tour, or remarks like the one she made about...

Scott Walker in 2015 is a lot like Barack Obama circa 2007; he’s relatively unknown and yet well-known at the same time. Obama’s speech at the DNC in 2004 propelled him to rock-star status among the Democratic faithful, while Walker’s victory over the public sector labor unions in 2011 made him a legend among conservatives. The Wisconsin Governor begins this campaign as a vessel into which voters can pour their hopes and aspirations. The question now is whether the idea of Walker can match up with the reality of Walker. At the annual Club for Growth conference in Florida this...

Why not all 'outsiders' are built the same, and how that might benefit Ted Cruz.Today the neurosurgeon Ben Carson is coming under political fire, including from conservatives, for giving this answer to a CNN question about whether being gay is a choice: Absolutely. Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question[.] Uh, let's not and say we did? First of all, I think the correct answer to that question, from any presidential candidate, is...

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll Saturday, his third victory in as many years. This year he carried 26 percent of the vote. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz placed third, with 11.5 percent, while former Gov. Rick Perry came in eleventh, with 1.1 percent. Both Paul and Cruz openly campaigned at the event. Cruz volunteers distributed custom-made buttons that said "Cruz Crew." Perry had a smaller get-out-the-vote operation at the conference. The contest comes after three days of speeches from presidential contenders and noteworthy conservative activists. On Thursday, Cruz touted his battles within...

After a well-received January appearance before a high-profile gathering of conservatives there, and several recent scraps with reporters, the new Quinnipiac University Poll put Walker, the Wisconsin governor, at 25 percent among likely participants in next year's Iowa Republican caucus. That total was nearly twice as much as the second-place finisher, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who drew 13 percent. Former Arkansas Gov. and 2008 caucus winner Mike Huckabee (at 11 percent), fiery surgeon Ben Carson (also 11 percent), and former Florida Gov Jeb Bush (10 percent) were the only other candidates who attracted backing from more than five percent of...