WASHINGTON – Riding a wave of conservative fervor over gay marriage and “traditional” social values, Texas Republican Ted Cruz has surged upward in national presidential polls and major donor support.
But even as he rallied April 9 with Christian home school parents in Des Moines, Iowa, metrics chronicling a major national swing in favor of same-sex marriage and gay rights threatens the senator’s long-term prospects – not only in a general election but in the GOP primaries.
Cruz has aimed squarely at religious conservatives in his quest to be president, but a raft of polls suggests that he and other evangelical candidates could be mining a shrinking older demographic that remains morally opposed to gay marriage.
While the entire GOP field also opposes same-sex marriage on religious or moral grounds, so far only Cruz has made religious values the centerpiece of his campaign as he seeks to lock down evangelical voters who make up a majority of GOP voters in South Carolina and the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses.
But to the extent that Iowa becomes the “evangelical” primary, analysts say, it could also become a cage impeding his appeal to a broader electorate.
Several recent polls showed Cruz moving up into the top three contenders for the GOP nomination, behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconson Gov. Scott Walker.
And this week his supporters announced that a group of “super PACs” supporting his bid had raised $31 million in a week.
But an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted in early March found that 59 percent of adults nationwide favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to enter into same-sex marriages, compared to 33 percent who are opposed.
That result is consistent with every other major national poll in the past year, including a February CNN poll that found 63 percent support for the right of gays and lesbians to marry.
It is also in line with a history of Gallup polls showing rising nationwide support for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, which has grown from 27 percent in 1996 to 55 percent last year.
“I don’t see it going back the other way,” said Mark McKenzie, a Texas Tech political scientist who has done survey research showing the growing acceptance of gay marriage – even in Texas, which passed a constitutional amendment in 2005 that excludes same-sex couples from marriage and other forms of legal family status.
That amendment, known as Proposition 2, is now under challenge in federal court, along with separate cases from other states that are now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, a Texas Tech poll last year found that a plurality of Texans (48 percent) now support marriage for same sex couples.
More crucial in the presidential election is how the issue plays out nationally, particularly in the perennial swing states of Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia.
Gays now have the legal right to marry in 37 states, including most of the crucial swing states – except Ohio, one of the states whose restrictions are now before the U.S. Supreme Court. A growing public acceptance is laying down a marker for traditionalists who fuel Cruz’s candidacy.
The CNN poll, like others, found that the nationwide margin of support for gay marriage is even higher among women (67 percent), voting-age adults under 35 (72 percent), and independents (65 percent).
Adults over 65 were about evenly split. Only one group in the poll stood out for falling below 50 percent support for gay marriage: Republicans, with 42 percent supporting it.
Support among Republicans, particularly young Republicans, also appears to be growing. “There’s a split between the business conservatives, who don’t really want to deal with the issue, and social conservatives, who are just very activated,” McKenzie said.
Cruz has made no secret of his strategy of mobilizing evangelicals and other social conservatives who he believes were either overlooked or taken for granted by past GOP nominees.
Rolling out his campaign March 23 at Liberty University, the Christian college founded in Virginia by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, Cruz noted that “roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t voting,” and called on “courageous conservatives” to rise up.
Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said that despite the polls, the campaign’s message on religious freedom resonates with voters who don’t believe government should be able to force people and businesses to accept practices that go against their religious beliefs.
“There are still millions of Americans who believe in the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman,” Tyler said. “It’s not only evangelicals. The Catholic Church is pretty clear on this also.”
Cruz’s campaign announcement dovetailed with the controversy over new religious freedom protections in Indiana that critics see as a way to discriminate against gays.
He consistently describes himself as being “on the front lines defending life and standing up for marriage.” He has drafted a “State Marriage Defense Act” which would give states the right to define marriage, keeping it out of the purview of Congress as well as the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a ruling on same-sex marriage by June.
On Friday, Cruz joined five other U.S. senators and 51 House members in a Supreme Court brief supporting the right of states to define marriage. The long-awaited decision is certain to keep the issue front and center in the GOP primaries, particularly Iowa.
Sen. Rand Paul, who announced this week for the nomination, has sought to cast a wider net, seeking to reach out to young people, independents and minorities who have not generally been part of the Republican coalition.
Defending the right not to be “part of a ceremony that’s against your religious beliefs,” Paul told Fox News personality Sean Hannity this week that “the law ought to be neutral and we shouldn’t treat people unfairly.”
While Cruz has rapidly gained traction as an icon of the Christian right, he also has become a lightning rod for the left. The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, has issued a brief singling out the freshman senator from a large GOP field and highlighted his hostility to gay marriage.
Although the Cruz strategy could pay dividends in Iowa, some say the Hawkeye State has a poor record of boosting eventual GOP nominees.
“Do you see a President Pat Buchanan?” said former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, an adviser to GOP hopeful Jeb Bush. “Do you see a President Rick Santorum? Do you see a President Pat Robertson?”
