In case you missed it on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after getting thumped in Tuesday’s five northeast primaries by Donald Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz took back the news cycle by making an announcement only surprising in it’s timing: he named former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his Vice-Presidential candidate if he earns the Republican nomination for President.
Cruz, of course, does not have the Republican nomination and, after Tuesday’s shellacking, he is way behind in the delegate count, with Trump less than 250 delegates away from clinching the nomination. It’s highly unusual for a candidate who has not sewn up his party’s nomination to name a running rate before-hand but I think it was a shrewd and excellent move, even if admittedly a bit desperate. Admittedly, mine is the minority opinion as most of the news media has cast the Fiorina announcement as a Hail Mary at best or irrelevant at worst.
Next Tuesday’s primary in Indiana is for all the marbles. There are only ten states that haven’t yet voted and, according to the Associated Press delegate tracker, Trump needs just 243 more delegates to reach the magic number of 1,237. If Trump takes all or most Indiana’s 57 delegates, the game is essentially over. So much about primary voting centers on momentum. After six wins with 55% of the vote or more, Trump has it in spades. So, to use a poker phrase, Cruz needed to go “all in” to give himself a chance at a contested convention, in which he will have the insider’s edge.
For Cruz, going “all in” started with the deal his campaign made with John Kasich’s campaign to have the Ohio Governor pull resources out of and stop campaigning in Indiana. That deal, however, which essentially involves convincing people to vote strategically, is a hard sell and the candidates (especially Kasich) have done a lousy job selling it. The fact is that the only chance either Cruz or Kasich have of being the GOP nominee is if Trump falls shy of 1,237 delegates and the convention is contested. It’s in Kasich’s best interest for Cruz to win Indiana (meaning that Trump loses) but he can’t bring himself to explain to his supporters that a vote for Cruz is also a vote for him.
So Cruz decided that he needed a much bigger splash than the awkward pact with Kasich so he announced an alliance that people understand, the political marriage between Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.
Here are five reasons why I think Cruz’ pre-emptive VP announcement was a cunning political decision:
- The obvious: he changed Wednesday’s news cycle from all Trump all the time to a shared news day, with Trump’s big wins Tuesday night sharing the media spotlight with the Fiorina news. Trump himself has been the master of stealing the news spotlight on the day after a bad night. Case in point: after Marco Rubio bested the Donald in one of the debates, the next day Trump announced that he was officially being endorsed by Rubio tormenter Chris Christie.
- When you look at presidential polls, whenever a nominee announces their running mate, there’s always a bump. The selection of a VP is something new, a shiny object for voters to look at. There is almost ALWAYS a bump. Even John McCain got a bump (a big one actually) when he announced Sarah Palin as his VP (I’ll pat myself on the back for panning the choice immediately, before anybody knew how thoroughly unqualified and ignorant she was). Cruz needed a bump right now, in time for the Indiana vote on Tuesday. In a close race, if he gets an extra 3-to-5 points, that could turn a loss into a win.
- In both the Indiana primary and the nine contests still to come between now and June 7th, the Texas Senator has given the voters a clearer vision of what his administration might look like. Trump is a phenomenon but it’s essentially an unknown how he will govern, other than making great deals, making Mexico pay for the wall, banning a third of the world’s population from the U.S. and making American great again in general. Remembering the Palin fiasco the last time a GOP candidate selected a female running mate, Cruz has selected the anti-Palin. Tens of millions of Republican and independent voters watched the debates and Fiorina proved to be the best of all seventeen candidates on the debate stage, even if that didn’t translate into support for her for the top job. Nobody could doubt her competence or intellectual preparedness for the office. Even as she chafed when constantly being asked the question, what she was essentially doing was auditioning for the VP role.
- Speaking of the debates, what Republican wouldn’t like the idea of Carly Fiorina prosecuting the case against Hillary Clinton? This will help Cruz in the next week and (if he succeeds in winning Indiana) in the weeks that follow. And, if he manages to win the nomination through a contested convention, she will be the ultimate attack dog against the former Secretary of State in the general election campaign.
- By pre-emptively selecting a woman as his potential running rate, Cruz may score points with women voters and remind them about some of the misogynistic things Trump has said during the campaign, in particular against Fiorina herself. Again, in a close race, a small bump among undecided female voters could make the difference.
There are two areas only where the announced Cruz-Carly partnership might hurt slightly. First, it feeds the narrative that he is desperate. Well, that’s a plain fact, Jack. If Trump picks up 48-to-57 more delegates and pulls within 200 of the magic number, it’s over. Done.
Second, Trump has made a big deal about Carrier Air Conditioning moving 2,000 jobs out of the state of Indiana to Mexico. The outrage over U.S. workers losing jobs to Mexico, China and other countries is one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Fiorina, as the former CEO of the nation’s largest technology company, was involved with the outsourcing of jobs (Trump’s convention manager Paul Manafort has called her the “Queen of Outsourcing.”) This is a potentially negative side effect of the announced Cruz-Carly partnership but my guess is that voters who are upset about the Carrier move are probably already in Trump’s camp (or Bernie Sanders’ camp on the other side).
I’ve also read a conservative writer’s opinion (Fred Barnes, I think) who feels that the Fiorina pick might ultimately be a card Cruz played too soon since it precludes the option of a “unity” ticket with Kasich to secure the Ohio Governor’s delegates. On paper, the moderate Kasich, as a popular governor in a critical swing state, would be an ideal running mate for the ultra-conservative Cruz. But he has been so emphatic that he would be a “terrible” VP that I’m thinking he might be right. A good VP needs to take the lead from the big dog and stay on message. Kasich strikes me as a bit undisciplined while Fiorina will be more reliable to execute the team’s game plan.
So, the ultimate question is whether Cruz can stop Trump’s momentum and beat him on Tuesday in the Hoosier State. In the Real Clear Politics Average of polls taken in the last week, Trump sits at 37.5%, with Cruz at 35.2% and Kasich at 18%. However, the numbers are slightly skewed by one poll that appears to be an outlier which shows Cruz up 45% to 29%. All of the other polls show the Texas Senator 2 to 9 points behind so he likely has some ground to make up. The Fox News poll showed that Cruz was the second choice of 70% of Kasich voters so, now that he’s stopped campaigning in the state, that might help a bit but the clumsy way in which the “deal” was announced might backfire and send some Kasich backers into Trump’s corner.
The state awards 30 delegates to the winner of the state-wide vote and 3 delegates to the winner of each of the 9 congressional districts. The winner state-wide will, by definition, win most of the districts so the winner will get between 48 and 57 delegates. If Trump were to get all 57, he would only need 184 out of the remaining 445 available to wrap it up. When you consider that New Jersey (and its 51 delegates) are a mortal lock for Trump, he would only need 133 out of 394 to win it. Even with a loss in Indiana, Trump still has a great chance to get to the magic number of 1,237 but a win would make it virtually certain. Hence why many in the media are going with the “too little too late” narrative.
Regarding this week’s vote, there are two significant advantages Trump has right now. First, he is riding a wave of momentum and is being anointed as the inevitable nominee by many in the media. Historically, as candidates in nominating contests draw closer to clinching, there is a bandwagon effect as undecided voters often like to be on the winning side. The second advantage is that Indiana is an “open” state in which anybody can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. In states that would normally be lined up well for Cruz (with a lot of conservative voters), Trump has performed better in the “open” states than the closed ones. Advantage Donald.
Cruz did get some good news Friday with the endorsement of sitting Indiana Governor Mike Pence, although it was a fairly tepid endorsement. Facing re-election this fall himself, Pence went out of his way not to offend anybody by praising all three candidates, telling them all to vote for whomever they wanted, but that he personally would be voting for Cruz.
ABC News
On the endorsement front, Trump got perhaps the ultimate Hoosier State seal of approval earlier in the week with the enthusiastic support of former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, who is a legend in the state. If you know anything about college basketball, you can see how Trump and Knight would be kindred spirits. They’re both brash, unapologetic, short-tempered and they’re both usually come up on the winning side.
I honestly feel this race is too close to call. I could see Trump scoring another decisive victory and effectively ending the race. I could also see Cruz not only winning but winning big and thus making the last nine races really important and interesting.
Thanks for reading.
Chris Bodig