The Texas senator derailed the Trump Train with a huge Wisconsin win on Tuesday night, but he couldn’t have done it without support from the evangelical community.
On Tuesday night, Christians saved Ted Cruz.
The Texan made winning Wisconsin look easy, waltzing to a double-digit victory in the Badger State and all but guaranteeing that the Republican Party will pick its nominee at a contested convention in Cleveland this summer.
But Tuesday’s result was not predestined—and it wasn’t just that a series of unforced errors that made the Trump Train sputter. The Cruz team pulled off a singular organizing feat, corralling a sizable number of Christian pastors for last-minute endorsements that helped shore up his support among evangelical Christians.
In February, Cruz suffered a tough defeat to Donald Trump in South Carolina, in large part because evangelicals—to the bafflement of many—were eager to line up behind the thrice-wed casino magnate.
In Wisconsin, though, that didn’t happen. CNN exit polling indicates that Cruz beat Trump among evangelical Christian voters by a whopping 21 points. And moving those numbers took work.
Julaine Appling, who heads the socially conservative group Wisconsin Family Action, said the effort was “absolutely unprecedented.” Pastors didn’t even come together by that number with that much speed for Gov. Scott Walker, she noted.
“This has been an incredible two-week blitz,” she said. “It speaks to the urgency, and the quality of the candidate.”
Appling helped organize the endorsements, working with Erik Corcoran, who was Cruz’s faith director for the state. As Corcoran stood in the victory party crowd under the purple lights of Milwaukee’s American Serb Hall on Tuesday night, he practically glowed.
“It was a God thing, it really was,” he said.
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SOURCE: BETSY WOODRUFF
The Daily Beast
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