April 6, 2016 at 3:31 PM
Barely moments after Ted Cruz won his big victory in Wisconsin last night, he immediately pivoted towards the general election, declaring that Hillary Clinton should quake in fear of the increasingly likely prospect that she will be facing him, not Donald Trump, in November. Meanwhile, there’s a good case to be made that Cruz could prevail as the GOP nominee, if a contested convention takes place.
Dems seem to think it might actually happen. Today the pro-Clinton Super PAC Priorities USA Action began running a new digital ad that targets Cruz along with Trump, featuring footage of the Texas Senator declaring that Roe v. Wade is not settled law and calling for the prosecution of Planned Parenthood.
In an interview with me, Geoff Garin, the pollster for Priorities USA, indicated that his group and Democrats were preparing for the possibility of facing Cruz as diligently as they have been preparing to face Trump — and that in some ways, Cruz might be every bit as ripe a target for Democrats as Trump would be.
“Cruz would be the most extreme right wing nominee in modern American history,” Garin told me. “He is deeply out of sync with a large majority of voters on social issues. His role in shutting down the government is anathema to most Americans. If Republicans nominate Cruz, they concede any claim to the center whatsoever.”
Garin cited Cruz’s opposition to Roe v. Wade and his desire to prosecute Planned Parenthood over the sting videos (Trump has actually defended the group’s role in providing health services to women) as well as Cruz’s vow to continue fighting to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling of a constitutional right to gay marriage.
“The fact that he wants to defund and prosecute Planned Parenthood puts him at odds with voters in a general election and with women voters in particular,” Garin said. “His desire to roll back the clock on marriage equality will be a deal breaker with a generation of voters.”
Garin allowed that Cruz would have some advantages over Trump, particularly in the temperament department. “Trump’s liabilities relate in part to the sense of risk voters feel about having him as commander in chief,” Garin said. “More and more people are coming to think of Trump as a know-nothing. Cruz’s intellect and knowledge are not his problems.”
But Garin also suggested that Cruz would have liabilities that Trump might not — chiefly, that Trump, for all of his crazy ideas, does convey a sense that he cares about the economic plight of struggling Americans and possesses some economic know-how. Cruz’s instincts and interests seem more bound up with social and constitutional conservatism, and with battling whatever symbol of big government overreach (or Washington betrayal) comes along to activate his base at any given moment, than with how to recast economic conservatism for an era of anxiety over stagnating wages and inequality. Garin argued that Cruz would struggle to appeal to the middle on economic issues.
“Trump has some credibility with voters in talking about the economy,” Garin said. “Cruz brings nothing to the table other than prepackaged ideology.”
Trump’s vows to carry out mass deportations and build a Great Trumpian Wall on the Mexican border have led many observers to conclude that nominating him could alienate Latino voters in historic numbers. But this distracts from the fact that Cruz, in moving towards Trump on immigration, has taken on major liabilities of his own: he has ruled out legalization of the 11 million forever and has played a lead role in fighting Obama’s executive actions to relieve millions from deportation, vowing to undo them on Day One.
Garin argued that Cruz might be demographically just as bad for Republicans as Trump would. “All of the demographic liabilities that Trump would have among Latinos and young voters would be equally true of Cruz,” Garin said. “Culturally Cruz is a nonstarter for millennials.”
Garin’s case, at bottom, is that Cruz could prove a really unattractive, unlikable, extreme figure. Of course, Hillary Clinton is also weighed down by terrible numbers on trust and likability, and has long been seen as a divisive figure, too. I asked Garin if the game plan against Cruz is to compensate for this by doing everything possible to render Cruz even less likable, both personally and ideologically.
“At the end of the day, candidates have to have redeeming qualities,” Garin said. “Hillary does. If nothing else, people believe she is strong and experienced and will bring a steady hand. There is nothing about Cruz that would cause voters to cut him a break. A good personality can soften hard edges. Cruz’s personality will make his harder edges even harder.”