Cruz is the one with the most solid base and he appears to have the machinery in place. He does seem to have a long game, and he is playing the Trump wrecking ball correctly (i.e. stand aside it and let it swing, not in directly in it's path like jebtard! keeps doing) Ted's grassroots moneyraising prove it.
Cruz has a great flyover country strategy. He's skipping the big venues and hitting 2 or 3 smaller towns per day. He's probably spoken in front of more people than anyone else in the race 1000 to 2500 at a time.
This pic from the Kingwoood TX tea party/Cruz event irritated the media.
