Iowa edge

Rubio battles Cruz for Iowa edge

More and more Republicans view the rivalry between the two senators as one that could determine the outcome of the Feb. 1 caucuses.

By Eli Stokols

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz weren't the only candidates in Iowa this weekend, but they might as well have been.

Beginning with their Friday night appearances here at the Family Leader Forum -- an audition of sorts before the influential Christian conservative group and its leader, Bob Vander Plaats -- the outline of their looming showdown began to take shape. And Iowa Republicans, including the 2,000 people in attendance at the event, began taking a much closer look at a rivalry that could determine the outcome of the Feb. 1 caucuses.

At the outset of a five-day Rubio swing across Iowa, his longest yet, the two Cuban-American, first-term senators weren't on equal footing: Rubio hasn't spent nearly as much time in the state as Cruz. There’s also a perception that the Rubio campaign’s organization isn’t up to snuff – or at least by comparison to the Texas senator’s robust network of support. According to the most recent Iowa poll, Cruz has surged to second place here, behind only Donald Trump and with roughly twice as much support as Rubio, who now occupies fourth place.

But the Florida senator’s strong performances in the first four national debates have won over major donors and piqued interest from rank and file Republicans just as Cruz’s campaign is hitting its stride here, 70 days ahead of the caucuses.

“Once Trump and [Ben] Carson’s descent becomes more rapid, it’s Cruz’s to lose,” said Douglas Gross, who was Mitt Romney’s Iowa finance chair four years ago and has yet to settle on a 2016 candidate. “He has the best opportunity and if he can get a good share of the Christian conservatives and the Tea Party, that should be enough to win right there.

“His only real competition is Rubio, whose challenge is to take some of the evangelical right and become the mainstream candidate for the establishment Republicans,” Gross said.

The expectation that Trump and Carson are near the apex of their support – or will soon be in eclipse – is fueling interest in Rubio and Cruz, both of whom are vying to be safe harbors for evangelical and Tea Party voters.

“Trump’s out there in the front, but he’s not presidential. He’s not going to make it. So it’s shifting. Ted Cruz has been more available and he has quite a following, especially the younger generation. And he comes here regularly," said Greg Crawford of Des Moines, who along with his wife Julie listened to seven GOP presidential hopefuls for three hours Friday. "But there is a lot of interest in seeing more of Rubio, because we've all seen in the debates how smart he is and how he can be inspiring. Everyone is starting to sense it coming down to those two."

If Cruz secures Vander Plaats endorsement before the end of the year, he’ll have assembled a formidable roster of Iowa’s Christian conservative influencers, having already won the backing of Congressman Steve King and scores of conservative pastors.

“If you go to my church on Saturday, every car will have a Cruz sticker on it,” said Matt Wells, a Cruz volunteer from Iowa City who attended the Family Leader Forum Friday night. “Marco’s not been in the state that much.”

While Cruz holds the edge with Christian conservatives, Rubio is working diligently to peel some of his support away. Cruz canceled all of his scheduled events Saturday after a night of snow; Rubio, however, stepped onto a stage inside an Oskaloosa coffee shop an hour’s drive away for the first of three events Saturday, part of a tour that will keep him in front of Iowa voters through Tuesday.

On Monday, he’s campaigning in Council Bluffs in conservative western Iowa and meeting with pastors. While Cruz may have the advantage with evangelicals, Rubio believes he’ll be able to draw support from across primary electorate, from governance-minded establishment conservatives to Tea Party-oriented fiscal conservatives.

Both Cruz and Rubio are selling electability – though it is also a point of demarcation between them. In his closing statement on stage Friday night, Cruz made a point of arguing that the way to win the general election is to nominate a true conservative who inspires the party’s base to show up, blaming the GOP’s past losses on establishment candidates who had lukewarm support from the base.

Rubio rarely speaks to voters so explicitly about his own electability as a charismatic, young Hispanic conservative. Based on some Iowans’ reactions to him, he doesn’t have to.

“He’s my number one choice right now; Cruz is number two,” said Melissa Hines, who attended Rubio’s first town hall Saturday morning in Oskaloosa. “Marco’s a little more electable in the general [election], and that’s why we lean a little more to him.”

During Rubio’s stump speech, he speaks of his parent’s sacrifices to create opportunities for him, offers detailed explanations of the root causes of foreign and domestic problems and wraps his message in the cloak of generational change – change that can propel the country forward into a “new American century.”

He rarely alters his remarks from stop to stop — he used the same joke about the snow Saturday at all three event s— but his ability to connect with crowds can cause them to forget that they’re listening to finely tuned talking points.

“I’m more impressed than ever,” said Robert Auld, after hearing Rubio in Oskaloosa. “I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen in the media, but I’m especially impressed with what I heard today.”

Auld names Rubio and Cruz as his two favorites – for now, Rubio has the edge. “I like his youth and his vigor and his ideas. I think he’s right that we need a new generation to make things happen,” Auld said.

With the caucuses now roughly two months away, Rubio’s organization in Iowa is working to broaden its bandwidth and the senator will be intensifying his campaigning in Iowa and other early states in an effort to close the sale. He is also beginning to draw sharper contrasts between himself and Cruz.

At the Family Leader Forum, Cruz overtly played to the crowd — when asked about his biggest mistake, Cruz cloyingly explained that he regrets having been “so arrogant” in trying to save his parents’ marriage. Rubio, when asked who he’d call as president immediately upon learning of a hypothetical terrorist attack, did not echo Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee, who professed they would “fall to their knees” and “call on God.”

Rather, after matter-of-factly ticking off a list of federal agencies he would call, Rubio continued to explain how the U.S. could better combat ISIS and prevent what he called “radical Islamic terrorism.” He was succinct when asked why President Obama hadn’t taken the steps he suggested: “Because he’s a bad president,” he said, drawing cheers.

The heightened focus on national security in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Paris have given Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a prime opportunity to overcome perceptions that at 44 years old, he’s too inexperienced — and to open a line of attack against Cruz.

On Sunday, Rubio criticized Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul for voting to gut funding for government surveillance programs, which he argued “are valuable tools in the war on terror.”

“If you have voted to harm those programs and undermine those programs then we need to have a debate about that, because it is a very different view of what the government's role should be in our national security,” Rubio said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

Rubio is likely to go harder at that point as February nears — attempting to make the case that Cruz, despite his reputation as a conservative firebrand, is actually malleable and inconsistent on policy. Over the weekend, a Rubio adviser tweeted out details of how the Texas senator has evolved on the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, initially supporting it in April before opposing it by fall.

While Cruz has blasted Rubio for co-authoring the 2013 comprehensive immigration bill that included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, Rubio has fired back, noting that Cruz is “a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally” or has changed his position.

For all Cruz’s organizational advantages in Iowa at the moment, Rubio’s team remains confident they will continue to close in. “Other campaigns might like to talk about their organization,” said Jack Whitver, Rubio’s Iowa campaign co-chairman. “We talk about our candidate. Our candidate is why we’re doing well here and why we’re going to do well in February.”