Ted Cruz: A new Reagan or a new Goldwater?

Cruz believes his populist and pugnacious conservatism will persuade some Millennials and traditionally Democratic voters, including Jews, Hispanics, blue-collar voters, and women. He has already gone to great lengths to court Jews, making it clear that he wants their approval, acceptance, and financial support. He turned up, for example, at Commentary magazine’s annual dinner in September 2013, the only potential 2016 candidate to do so. The senator also attended New York City’s Israel Day concert and parade in June — and then raised $100,000 at Abigail’s, a kosher restaurant in Manhattan. He gave an address last month to the Zionist Organization of America, preceded by a meeting with New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman and followed by meetings with Sheldon Adelson and the hedge-fund manager Michael Steinhardt, former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. Steinhardt hosted Cruz in his office around a table with some of the Jewish community’s most influential political donors.

As for Hispanics, Millennials, and women, Cruz’s advisers point to internal polling showing that he won 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas when he was elected in 2012, seven percentage points more than Mitt Romney won there, and to a Politico report indicating that, on social media, Cruz is the most talked-about presidential candidate on the right. And they argue that he has a logical appeal to female voters. They cite his speeches about the influence of the important women in his life, his support for Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s bill that would have removed sexual-assault cases from the military chain of command, and his attempts when he was a college student to confront the problem of date rape, news of which conveniently emerged as the Rolling Stone piece about a purported 2012 gang rape on the University of Virginia campus began to unravel and the controversy it sparked reached its apex. His wife, Heidi, a managing director in the Houston office of Goldman Sachs who burnished her political skills as an economic adviser on George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign and then in the Bush White House, where she served on the National Security Council, will also undoubtedly play a role in his efforts to appeal to women.