A stumble by Cruz in Saturday’s primary would raise doubts ahead of the delegate-rich March contests about the electoral power and influence of the hard right’s galaxy of grass-roots groups, media organs and faith leaders that have coalesced around him.

It would also signal a fundamental shift in the Republican base: away from traditional right-wing alliances and litmus tests toward a new conservatism shaped by style, emotion and nationalism…

In the latest CNN poll of likely GOP voters in South Carolina, Trump holds the support of 42 percent of the state’s white evangelical voters. Cruz is in second at 23 percent.

“It doesn’t matter if these people are for him,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who won the South Carolina primary in 2012, said regarding Cruz’s endorsers. “There is a country out there that doesn’t care at all. There is Washington, and there is the country — and that includes what’s happening on parts of the right.”