Posted on 02/10/2016 10:23:20 AM PST by justlittleoleme
Cruz's win in the Iowa caucuses last week was, as it has been for every recent GOP Iowa winner, heavily reliant on evangelical Christians. He over-performed among this group, beating Trump 34-22 among them.
Two points here. The first is that, yes, Iowa is a very evangelical state, and not every state -- read: New Hampshire -- has the same makeup. In fact, New Hampshire is the least religious state in the country, according to Gallup, and PRRI reports only about 1 in 10 residents is an evangelical.
In this regard, though, the next few weeks of the GOP race look a whole lot more like Iowa than New Hampshire. And that is fantastic for Cruz.
-snip-
It may not shock you to see the most heavily-white-evangelical states clustered in the South. Many of them are significantly more evangelical than Iowa, where 64 percent of the GOP electorate last week was evangelical.
And here is the second point: The most evangelical states are pretty heavily front-loaded in this process -- thanks in large part to the "SEC Primary" on March 1.
South Carolina on Feb. 20 and a whopping six of the 11 states holding contests on Super Tuesday/"SEC Primary" Day on the first of March have more evangelicals than Iowa does.
And here's where it gets even better for Cruz: Heavily Christian Kansas and Louisiana and heavily evangelical Kentucky vote just four days later on March 5, followed by heavily evangelical Mississippi on March 8 and heavily evangelical Missouri and North Carolina on March 15. In fact, if you exclude Maryland and West Virginia from the definition of "Southern," the Southern states will all have voted five weeks from now.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In 9 out of the last ten elections we have had a Bush or a Clinton running for President or Vice President. And in 28 out of the past 35 years, there has been a Clinton or Bush as President or VP. Add to that Clinton's four years as SecState and you have these two families at center stage for 32 our the past 35 years. Dynastic politics at its worst. We have become a banana republic.
Cruz can win the general as people hear his ideas without the noise of all these superfluous candidates in the race.
.....And Trump beat Cruz in other other single category.
Including those who support amnesty. Pretty funny stuff, except he did change his position AGAIN and no longer plans to deport illegals.
And you trust him why?
All NH votes counted Trump got more than 100,000 votes
Guess a lot of Evangelicals and other mainstream Christians voted for Donald.
Romney was a wholesome guy with a great family and Evangelicals didn’t vote for him. In fact when was the last time they actually voted in the numbers they have?
Evangelicals are a big group, but you only have influence if you vote.
Evangelicals don’t like Muzzie Obama but they didn’t vote
so we are all stuck with him. I hope everyone learned the lesson we want whomever wins the GOP election to be a person we can back, but the truth is Bernie and Hillary are not acceptable on any level.
Yeah Saint Ted is way up in South Carolina, North Carolina Georgia Alabama, and ... oh wait never mind go back to sleep.
It is just that those of us who are social conservatives or across the board conservative (as I am), are sick and tired of being taken for granted by the Republican candidates.
We have been through this many times and are not willing to settle. The tea party conservatives have made a huge dent in the makeup of Congress. And we are going to keep fighting until we are represented.
“Evangelicals don’t like baring false witness like Cruz used against Nice Doc Carson.”
Yeah, kind of like those horrible, lying, dishonest investigative journalists who used fake IDs to make their highly edited video.
You are either naive, very gullible, or a phony. There is ONE and only ONE reason Cruz is being singled out for the most malicious attacks: he is the most conservative candidate. He is pro-life and hated for it.
I look at his record. I look at his conservative ratings. I look at who hates him. He is my guy.
And by the way, I am one of those evangelical conservative, and I am behind Cruz 100%.
Yes, I get it. You're not willing to settle.
So. You can try winning elections on your own, except you can't. You can't elect a social conservative dog catcher.
You can go into coalition with others who you agree with some of the time, while not poisoning their chances of winning.
Or, you can lose.
Those are your choices. Choose wisely.
Correct. In America in 2016, religious conservatives are hated.
I believe the Boss explained the consequences of discipleship to you in John's gospel. I believe he also cautioned you about seeking the Kingdom in this world.
What is your point? We choose national leaders by people voting. Probably a very poor method, but that's how we do it.
Serving up that which the People hate is a poor method for success.
Now, you could be honest and say, "Nominate Ted Cruz. He is certain to lose, but this is a Kingdom goal". But don't pretend that this is a strategy to win.
From reading a lot of the comments here, I don't think they are very popular on FR either...
I has a cup to catch your tears! 
Well, America would be a better place if they were in charge - they're right about that.
But in electoral politics, you're standing is measured by what you can bring to the table, and in that realm, their influence is entirely negative, They can hurt the nominee, but they can't (or won't) help him.
It's interesting that Kentucky switched to a caucus system - not exactly the first state that comes to mind to make such a switch.
The very real problem is, the Dec. 31, 2015 deadline to register in order to participate was very poorly advertised, and thus it doesn't help any particular candidate extant. Well it would have helped Rand but there ya go.
Anyone that wants Kentucky will have to work it retail-style, and yet no one's been there - except for Sir Lard Huckabee, who backed Kim Davis to the hilt.
Perhaps in a post-Christian era you are right about getting conservatives elected. See my tagline. I do not think even IF we do elect solid conservatives they will be able to fix what is wrong with this nation now. However, I will still support the most conservative candidates. They will do the least harm.
Rand fought for it because of KY ballot law, and McConnell hates it. It only applies to GOP Presidential delegates. There will still be a Primary in May.
Because some Federal Judge Slingblade doofus appointed-because-he-was-the-son of some sort of dipshit baseball demigod -- a Democrat! no less -- imprisoned a woman of Christian conscience for telling gays to bugger off. Every single one of those gays could have gotten that license in another county. But no, they must have wanted Conway to lose that badly lol...
And nearly every state in the US would have a Bevin as Governor if they had a Federal Judge Slingblade stupid enough to try that again.
Yeah, I didn't say differently, did I. And the primary will be for everything but President.
I'm telling you the 2015 deadline was poorly advertised, thusly: (a) of no extra help to anyone named Cruz; and therefore (b) anyone who wants it will have to come and get it, whether it's Trump or Cruz or Jeb or Robot.
Yeah, the Zevangelicals are quite busy pounding as much sand as they can find from New Hampshire to South Carolina lol...
I’m not sure what you mean about the deadline. Cruz is on the ballot or whatever they call it.
The sodden bent of this thread was that somehow all these hidden evangelicals will help Cruz pull a convention rabbit out of his ass, and that somehow Kentucky factored yugely into this preposterous hypothesis; but witness that Kentucky switching to a caucus system does not help Cruz in the slightest, ironically because Rand saw fit to create a Dec. 31, 2015 deadline for signing up!
Now, 41 days into 2016, and with Rand out, no candidate can 'load up' the caucus with last-minute supporters. Therefore, that 2015 sign-up deadline only aids retail politics - as it has been proven in Iowa must be done in caucus states - and yet not one single candidate has campaigned in the Bluegrass.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.