Cruzzing for money

Money, caucuses early focus for Cruz

By Theodore Schleifer

As Sen. Ted Cruz announces he will run for president, he likely has two things on his mind: money and Iowa.

Cruz will formally enter the presidential race ahead of any of his competitors Monday at Liberty University, a Christian school in Lynchburg, Va. But Texas' junior senator will have to quickly turn his focus to raising the dollars and winning the votes in the first-in-the-nation caucuses that likely give Cruz his best chance for a victory in an early nominating contest, analysts say.

In what is shaping up to be a crowded field, two of Cruz's Senate colleagues, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, are expected to formally join the race in the next few weeks, and neurosurgeon Ben Carson has already launched an exploratory committee. Former Gov. Rick Perry has said he would announce his bid in May or June. And many other Republican leaders - from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush - have created political action committees to hire staff, travel the country and, critically, raise money in advance of announcements.

Given the competition, Cruz could have trouble convincing major donors that he can win the nomination, said Joe Brettell, a Texas-based GOP strategist.

"Until he can show both the organizational and financial might that will make him a force, Sen. Cruz's real impact may be felt only on the debate stage," Bretell said.

Some Republican elites and establishment donors still consider him too conservative for mainstream Republicans eager to defeat Hillary Clinton, the probable Democratic nominee, in a general election. On Sunday, Cruz's Republican senate colleague John McCain called him a "very viable" contender, a softening from the 2008 GOP presidential nominee who once called Cruz a "wacko bird."

The broader Republican electorate voices more support for more moderate options, too, placing Cruz in the back of the pack in national opinion polling. Democrats on Sunday were gleeful that Cruz could drag the entire Republican field to the right, with Brad Woodhouse, the head of opposition research group American Bridge, saying that Cruz "represents everything voters hate about the modern Republican Party in one candidate."

But the national tea party base that helped pluck Cruz from obscurity as he toiled away in a long-shot Senate campaign against then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst adores him, and Cruz will appeal to those same voters in 2016, Cruz senior advisers say, and solicit their donations.

The Cruz campaign will try to raise $40 million to $50 million during the primary, according to senior advisers, but the campaign believes it can make the top tier with $30 million, arguing that candidates of the pre-Barack Obama era showed they did not need more than $30 million to win a primary.

But recent Supreme Court rulings have transformed campaign fundraising, and some Republican fundraisers and strategists told the Washington Post this year that top-tier GOP candidates likely need to raise $75 million to survive the first three contests, more than twice the amount that the Cruz campaign thinks they need to succeed.

Hal Lambert, a top Cruz fundraiser and a former finance chair of the Republican Party of Texas, disagreed with the $75 million figure.

"If you have a really good grass-roots operation, which Cruz does, that can compensate for money," Lambert said. "A lot of it is running a well-organized and smart campaign strategy where you don't spend a lot of wasted money on consultants and others."

A daunting political challenge for Cruz will be to raise money from high-dollar contributors and not just the grass-roots donors like the one who threw his checkbook at Cruz last weekend in Barrington, N.H. Senior advisers to Cruz stress that he can woo the bundlers who can funnel large checks, and he has increased his outreach in recent months to the Houston donors who spurned him during his run against Dewhurst.

A week from Tuesday, 29 individuals or couples who agreed to give or raise $50,000 will gather in Houston for the kickoff fundraiser for Cruz's campaign, including one donor who appeared on a advisory board for Perry's political action committee just last month.

The Cruz fundraising operation, currently executed by eight finance staffers at the Upper Kirby headquarters, will aim to raise between $20 million and $25 million from bundlers, $10 million online, another $10 million from direct mail and between $3 million and $5 million from fundraising calls, Cruz senior advisers said. Even if the Cruz campaign manages to raise only half of that $50 million upper target, senior advisers say, they believe the campaign can remain competitive.

The Cruz campaign also believes it can spend money more effectively by placing an unprecedented emphasis on analytics, with senior advisers pledging to hire more data analysts than any other campaign.

That can help in a state like Iowa, where observers see Cruz as having a chance to break through even though Cruz has won only about 5 percent of the vote in recent opinion polls. Cruz senior advisers said he would make direct appeals to the half of Republican caucus voters next winter who are expected to be evangelical Christians. Cruz will court Christian homeschool parents next month in Des Moines.

John Stineman, an Iowa Republican operative who is unaligned this cycle, said Cruz's job would be to make inroads with the libertarian caucus-goers who form Paul's natural base. If he can combine support from his tea party diehards with some additional votes from the libertarian and social conservative wings, Stineman said, Cruz can be one of three candidates to leave Iowa with momentum.

"I don't think that he has to win Iowa ," he said. "He's definitely got strong potential here."

In New Hampshire, a state that tends to support more moderate GOP candidates, the Cruz commitment is less defined. One senior Cruz campaign adviser said it would not forfeit the state, but a second said the senator instead would look to manage and then over-perform expectations. The senator's PAC has not hired a state-based operative in New Hampshire like it has in Iowa and South Carolina.

In these early states, Cruz advisers said, they will eschew highly paid strategists and instead hire more firebrand activists - taking a cue from Cruz himself.