Cruz also offered a new argument in his attempt to paint GOP front-runner Donald Trump as an inauthentic conservative, claiming that he is inheriting the support of disenchanted Marco Rubio supporters.
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Questioning Cruz’s commitment to the Republican Party, Dole called him an “extremist” and said Cruz chooses “conservative” as his label.
Trump is out front with 36 percent support nationally, down from 41 percent in the same survey last month but still more than a 2-to-1 advantage over Sen.
Warning of “cataclysmic” and “wholesale losses” for the Republican Party if Cruz prevails, Dole, who unsuccessfully challenged then Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1996, said Cruz had made enemies in Washington.
She said she and her husband decided they would wait to see who ends up being closest to frontrunner Donald Trump and cast their votes for that candidate.
A Cruz campaign official told NBC News two weeks ago that the campaign meant to reach the point where it could set its sights on Trump. Marco Rubio coming in at 11 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at eight percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with five percent.
Ted Cruz took his first substantive shot at Bernie Sanders as a presidential candidate on Wednesday, the latest sign of Sanders’ growing strength in the Democratic primary.
Cruz delivered his remarks shortly after a new CNN/WMUR poll bumped Cruz up to second place in New Hampshire, the state that traditionally picks the so-called establishment or moderate candidates over the more socially conservative options like Cruz.
And Cruz said he welcomes that.
Cruz took aim at Trump and his other chief rival – Florida U.S. Sen.
Meanwhile, Trump, who won former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Palin’s endorsement on Tuesday, led by 34 percent to 14 percent over Cruz among voters in New Hampshire’s February 9 Republican primary. As New York’s Jonathan Chait explains, establishment Republicans are just accepting that their party is in the clutches of a madman, and they view Cruz as “just as bad as Trump, or possibly even worse”.
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But new private polling conducted for a GOP establishment group shows Trump leading Cruz in several Southern GOP congressional districts.
