Rivals fixated on Cruz

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) faces his toughest test so far this presidential cycle with rival campaigns seeing him as the candidate to crush in tonight’s Republican debate.

{mosads}Cruz, who has surged to second place in national polls and first in Iowa, is trying to avoid conflict with front-runner Donald Trump and stay clear of the barrage of negative advertising that is likely to napalm the establishment lane of the GOP race.

But he may have no say in the matter.

Cruz comes into this debate as the hottest candidate in the Republican field. Media pundits are promoting his prospects, with innumerable stories in national outlets trumpeting his strategy to win Southern states on Super Tuesday and his campaign’s sophisticated use of data and social media.

Rival campaigns are now fixated on Cruz, saying he will now be treated with all the aggressiveness and scrutiny that comes with being a leading candidate.

The GOP race now has a clear top tier of Trump, Cruz, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), with a significant drop to the next tier, which consists of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Previewing the debate, a senior Nevada-based operative for a rival campaign told The Hill, “It seems that it is Cruz’s time under the spotlight now that he is leading in Iowa.”

Even Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — who is lagging in single-digit polling and relied on CNN’s goodwill to squeak onto the main debate stage — is getting in on the Cruz bashing.

Trump has been previewing attack lines over the past several days, including saying that not many evangelical Christians come out of Cuba and suggesting that Cruz’s “maniac” tendencies in the Senate would preclude him from working effectively with Congress as president.

At a rally Monday night at a Vegas hotel, Trump had only to mention Cruz’s name to make his supporters boo loudly. But Trump did not attack Cruz directly in his speech, only warning abstractly that the debate would be combative and that any candidate who attacks him inevitably sinks in the polls.

“They’re all coming after me,” Trump said. “[But] so far everyone that’s attacked me has gone right down to 2 [percentage points in national polls].”

Cruz is likely to be hit on more substantive issues by Rubio, who is solidifying as a favorite of establishment Republicans and is vying with Cruz for second place behind Trump in national polls.

Rubio avoided criticizing Cruz or any other rivals at a speech in a Las Vegas hotel on Monday night, and stuck largely to a positive stump speech about the “American Dream.”

But in an interview with The Hill in the Renaissance Hotel ballroom shortly after Rubio’s speech, campaign spokesman Alex Conant left little doubt that the Florida senator would use the debate to continue his attacks on Cruz’s national security record.

“I think this is increasingly becoming a national security election,” Conant said. “The candidates have different ideas of how to keep America safe, so I think that will be a topic of the debate tomorrow night.

“I don’t know what Cruz’s strategy is going to be tomorrow night, I don’t want to comment on his strategy, other than to say … there’s policy differences between Marco and Sen. Cruz … especially in some of the security issues,” he added.

“The campaigns have been pointing them out, and presumptively CNN will give the candidates an opportunity to expand on that tomorrow night.”

Conant pointed out that Sen. Cruz had “voted to gut the intelligence program … voted against the NDAAs [National Defense Authorization Acts] which authorize everything from the Iron Dome in Israel to funding for our troops, and he voted for the Rand Paul budget which dramatically cut defense spending.”

The focus on Cruz comes amid polling results that have surprised even the most seasoned analysts.

Veteran Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, who runs the respected Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll, told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that she had “never seen a spike like this” when asked about Cruz’s 21-point jump in support between the October to December surveys. Cruz, with 31 percent support among likely Republican caucusgoers, now leads Trump by 10 points in that poll.

The predominant victim of Cruz’s rise has been Carson, whose support in Iowa has siphoned away to the Texas senator, his main rival for courting evangelical votes.

Carson’s team acknowledges he has suffered due to voter perceptions that he is ill prepared on foreign policy. But despite the candidate’s plummeting poll numbers, his key Nevada operative says they will not be panicked into changing their strategy.

“We are approaching this debate like all the others,” said Carson’s Nevada state director Jimmy Stracner. “Dr. Carson is excited to participate in these debates and welcomes each opportunity to speak directly to the American people.”

The Cruz campaign did not respond to a request for comment.