I've been saying this since the day he entered the race eight months ago, and the debates have done nothing to make me doubt it my initial assessment: Keep an eye on Cruz.
With the collapse of Carson, Ted's got the momentum and is now riding shotgun in the GOP clown car.
In fact, he's now (suddenly) essentially tied with Trump in Iowa.
Ted Cruz, buoyed by tea party support and the backing of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, has surged to a virtual tie with Donald Trump in the first caucus state of Iowa, according to the results of a Quinnipiac University poll surveying likely Republican caucus-goers released Tuesday.
Trump took 25 percent of support, followed by 23 percent who opted for the freshman Texas senator, more than doubling his support in the same poll from October, when he earned just 10 percent. Trailing the two leaders is Ben Carson, who dropped from first to third, falling 10 points to 18 percent.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is fourth with 13 percent, while no other candidate registered in the double digits.
I guess that Steve King endorsement really was a big deal, huh?
This comes on the heels of another Iowa poll showing Cruz in second place and a slew of other state and national polls showing him hovering around third place.
I get why a lot of people still don't Ted Cruz very seriously. His views are absurd, his face is kinda goofy, he's got bad hair, his voice is odd, and all reasonable people can't stand him. As a Texan, I didn't take him very seriously either...then he crushed our sitting Lieutenant Governor in a runoff and the Democrat in the general election and was my senator before I even knew what had happened.
In short, say what you want about the guy...but he knows how to win. And if Trump finally collapses and Rubio goes down over his immigration flip-flopping (quite likely in this environment, in my opinion), Cruz is well-positioned to be the least-bad consensus choice among conservatives and lock up the nomination around mid-Spring.
Consider that a highly-plausible hunch. But consider this a prediction:
If it's Clinton vs Cruz, we're looking at Democratic electoral landslide on par or better than 2008...possibly flipping the Senate and the House in the process.