Ted Cruz Wins Big Endorsement From Influential Iowa Evangelicals

“This endorsement might be a win for Cruz, but the shared backwards Republican policies are a loss for Iowa’s families”.

Vander Plaats led a campaign to recall three Iowa Supreme Court Judges who ruled in favor of marriage equality. I mentioned this a few weeks ago but Vander Plaats said recently of evangelicals and the nomination process, “Our destruction in the past has been division”.

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz continued his rising momentum in the state of Iowa Thursday by receiving the coveted endorsement of social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats.

Vander Plaats endorsed Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012. “Just like Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bob Vander Plaats would deny gay couples the ability to marry, restrict a woman’s access to health care, and pursue xenophobic policies that only strengthen terrorist organizations overseas”, he said.

In Iowa, Cruz and Donald Trump appear to be vying for the top spot. But Monday’s CNN/ORC poll found in Iowa that more evangelicals backed Cruz than any other candidate, and Perkins could help get more. With this track record in mind, Vander Plaats’ support was considered very important to much of the GOP’s 2016 field. A CBS/NYT national poll let go today shows Cruz in 2nd place behind Trump.

Vander Plaats’ backing gives Cruz more evidence that he is consolidating conservative support in his bid for the White House. Cruz attacked a fellow Republican for marching in a pride parade, saying, “When a mayor of a city chooses twice to march in a parade celebrating pride, that’s a statement – and it’s not a statement I agree with”. He said that Cruz is “still viewed as that outside candidate who really knows how this thing works and what needs to be changed” moreso than other candidates.

Vander Plaats is key for Iowa, but Perkins could be more helpful nationally, as leaders of the professional conservative apparatus jump at the chance to energize Cruz’s surging campaign.

During his remarks, Trump stressed the importance of winning the state. Unfortunately for the Texas Senator, Cruz’s comments were caught on tape by an attendee and leaked to The New York Times. “I think the lion share of their supporters will come to us”.

“The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats”, he said last week, a claim the fact-checking website PolitiFact dubbed “mostly false” and seemed a kind of dog whistle aimed at conservative voters wary of crime by African-Americans.

Cruz explained: “You look at Paris, you look at San Bernardino, it’s given a seriousness to this race, that people are looking for: Who is prepared to be a commander in chief?”

The ouster of Assad, Cruz said, could result in “radical jihadis” controlling Syria, leading to more problems for the United States.

Olsen, author of a book that will be released next year called “The Four Faces of the Republican Party”, added, “These are the voters who either don’t like highly charged conservatism on principle (think the moderates) or they are the sort of conservatives who favor Mitch McConnell or John Boehner”.