Two-man race

Cruz pins his hopes on two-man race

Buoyed by wins in Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska, senator's campaign pushes Rubio to step aside.

By Katie Glueck

It wasn’t the Super Tuesday result that Ted Cruz might have envisioned a month ago, but his victories in Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska gave him a rationale to continue his campaign-- and to attempt to seize the title of Trump alternative, as he looks to build momentum in the series of states that vote ahead of March 15.

“We have a choice,” Cruz said at his watch party here. “So long as the field remains divided, Donald Trump’s path to the nomination remains more likely. And that would be a disaster for Republicans, for conservatives, and for the nation.”

“Ugh,” replied many in the crowd.

“And after tonight, we have seen that our campaign is the only campaign that has beaten, that can beat and that will beat Donald Trump,” he said, going on to argue that it is time to “unite” behind one Trump alternative.

The Cruz campaign was quick to argue that his three wins on Tuesday, on top of his victory in the Iowa caucuses, prove that he is the only candidate capable of beating Trump. They got a boost from an unlikely source — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a frequent Cruz critic who nonetheless suggested it may be close to the time for anti-Trump voters to rally around the Texas senator. And Cruz’s top surrogates quickly began pushing for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose only Super Tuesday win came in the Minnesota caucuses, to step aside.

Bob Vander Plaats, Cruz’s national co-chairman, vowed: “After tonight, I will be making the argument, as well as many others who will be making the argument, that this is now a two-person race between Trump and Cruz. And if Rubio really wants to do what he says he wants to do, to save the Republican Party of Reagan and Lincoln from Donald Trump, his choice will be to drop out, back Sen. Cruz, let those two stop splitting the vote and take on Trump.”

He went on to add, “Rubio has a chance to tip the scales of history, put the cause of the country above himself and support Ted Cruz.”

That is not how Rubio sees it. Rubio’s team has said they are prepared to take the fight all the way to the convention if necessary; they have also said that they will win Rubio’s home state of Florida on March 15, and Rubio came in ahead of Cruz in several states including Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont. They were in a virtual tie for second place in Georgia by the end of Tuesday night. Meantime, Cruz’s wins occupied a much smaller slice of the map than his team had long hoped.

The Texas senator spent a year preparing for a strong showing on March 1, investing significant time and resources in places like Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee—all states where Trump dominated.

Even here in Texas, Cruz found himself playing defense, and did not notch the 50 percent of the vote that would have allowed him to carry all of the state’s delegates.

Going forward, Cruz will have to make a much stronger showing in the states that award delegates proportionally between March 1 and the big winner-take-all states on March 15, which offers a more challenging map that includes Florida, a big delegate prize in a place where polls show Trump currently leading, but where Rubio is making his big stand.

“We’re going to walk out with the most money and second-most support in the race,” a senior Cruz adviser said, going on to add, “From there he goes to Louisiana, he goes to Kansas, to Maine, where we’ll start advertising [Tuesday], Kentucky, Idaho, Mississippi.”

All of those are places where Cruz can aim to show momentum, before having to compete on less hospitable turf in Florida, Ohio, and Illinois – large states with fewer of the religious conservatives who are Cruz’s base of support.

Cruz heads to Kansas on Wednesday, ahead of Saturday’s caucuses there, a deeply conservative state where he has been organizing and has a leadership team in place. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a conservative, anti-establishment congressman from Kansas, has also endorsed Cruz. Following the GOP debate on Thursday he is expected to hit a slew of the other proportional states in the hopes of padding his delegate lead.

“It’s a critical night,” the adviser said. “This will be the night that the race yet again slims. Cruz is using this night to claim the mantle of being the alternative to Trump.”

Yet it was unclear Tuesday night that anyone would be exiting the race, and even some of Cruz’s own supporters see overtaking Trump after trailing him so badly on Super Tuesday as a difficult battle.

“Even if he wins Texas, it’s still hard, moving forward,” a Cruz donor said. “He’d have to pick up multiple winner-take-all states to still stay in it after that, which is very hard. Trump is dominating some of these polls.”

But there remains an appetite for an alternative to Trump, and Cruz on Tuesday, noting that he is so far the only candidate to beat Trump three times, urged his rivals, “I ask for you to prayerfully consider coming together. Uniting.”