Long term, if voters don’t like you, it doesn’t matter how good your organization is or how much establishment support you have. And Cruz is among the best-liked Republican candidates. In an average of the last three live-interview polls1 in which Republican voters were asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable impression of at least half the candidates, Cruz ranks fourth in net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable) at +33 percentage points.
CANDIDATES NET FAVORABILITY
Ben Carson +62
Marco Rubio +48
Carly Fiorina +45
Ted Cruz +33
Mike Huckabee +26
Jeb Bush +24
Chris Christie +21
John Kasich +17
Bobby Jindal +16
Donald Trump +15
Rick Santorum +12
Rand Paul -1
Lindsey Graham -12
George Pataki -20
Cruz is well ahead of current poll leader Trump, and Cruz’s general popularity suggests that he has a better chance to coalesce support as candidates drop out of the race. That’s key in a race with 15 candidates.
And this isn’t just a national phenomenon. Cruz is also well-liked in Iowa, which shouldn’t be too surprising given his appeals to Christian conservatives. When I wrote about the state of play in Iowa late last month, Cruz had a net favorability of +35 percentage points there. That’s good enough for fifth-best among all the Republican candidates. A win in Iowa would be big news for Cruz, and — given that he is well-liked nationally — could give him momentum in South Carolina and beyond.
...The Republican establishment has (so far) not rallied around a candidate, and that may leave a little more room for the grassroots to influence the nominating process. That would benefit Cruz. According to a survey from Huffington Post and YouGov of Republican activists, Cruz is currently in second place to Trump. And Cruz’s net favorability rating among activists (+53 percentage points) is far ahead of Trump’s (+19). Grassroots support is incredibly important in caucus states like Iowa.
Cruz is bolstered, in large part, because he is the top choice of born-again Christians and tea party Republicans. In the past, we’ve seen candidates who match Cruz’s profile (socially conservative alternatives to the establishment choice) fail — think Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012. But Cruz isn’t likely to encounter the same money problems they did (more on this in a moment). Additionally, as the fight over who should be the speaker of the House has demonstrated, the outsider/angry wing of the Republican Party is having more success than ever.
...FiveThirtyEight often measures the ideology of candidates by using a combination of their congressional votes, fundraising base and public issue statements. On this metric, Cruz is the most conservative candidate in the race this year and more conservative than any modern Republican nominee for president.
Cruz has a lot of money. A well-liked, well-financed candidate is dangerous in a primary.
...Cruz sounds like an elder statesman compared with Carson and Trump. The longer Carson and Trump are ahead, the more likely it will be that the party actors will be scared into making a compromise with the base. Someone like Cruz who has actually held elected office and is liked by the grassroots could be that candidate.
So why not Cruz?
I’ve listed five reasons why I’m taking a second look at Cruz, but I don’t want to understate my skepticism of his chance of winning. He still hasn’t addressed the No. 1 reason I thought his campaign would have trouble: support from the party actors. In campaigns since 1980, no candidate hated by the establishment has won.
Read more here.
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