On Tuesday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul entered the Republican race for the presidency. Most people assume his natural rival is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. They waited for Mr. Cruz to respond.
On Wednesday, he did.
Not in the way most people would have expected. Instead of challenging Mr. Paul on the issues, the Cruz team threw down the gauntlet in a different manner. They announced that a group of super-PACs have raised an unbelievable $31 million for the Texas Senator.
That is $31 million.
To put that in perspective, Newt Gingrich only raised $24 million when he ran in 2012. That was Mr. Gingrich’s fundraising for the entire year. The Cruz campaign just cruised past that mark with ease.
The traditional wisdom is that most of the Republican money would go to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But according to published sources, some of the people behind the super-PACs are former supporters of Bush and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
The numbers for Mr. Cruz are huge. The knock the establishment puts on Mr. Cruz is that he is “unelectable.” Of course, this comes from a group that has pushed a series of “electable” candidates on America who at the end of the day don’t end up with enough votes to win. In 2016, the Democrat nominee (who will be Elizabeth Warren) will end up with well over a billion dollars in legal and illegal contributions to try and win the presidency. Mr. Cruz just showed everyone that he can raise money and he can stay in the fight.
If Tuesday was the exceptional, excellent, very good day for Mr. Cruz, it was surely the no good, horrible, very bad day for other Republicans, including Mr. Paul. Mr. Paul was not only slammed by the media the day after his launch, but then watched Mr. Cruz destroy fundraising records. For other Republicans thinking about getting into the race, Mr. Cruz’s fundraising haul is a warning shot.
Every presidential candidate enters the race believing they can win. But fundraising is what separates the men from the boys. Fundraising kills nascent campaigns. In primaries, it is the Darwin mechanism that kills off all but the fittest.
In 2012, there was a crowded conservative field. Finally in the South Carolina primary, Mr. Gingrich broke out and was on top. Unfortunately for Gingrich, his fundraising was seriously lacking. The campaign turned to Florida where Mitt Romney had all of the money and Mr. Gingrich had none. Mr. Romney carpet-bombed Mr. Gingrich with ads on TV and Mr. Gingrich could not get on the air to fight back.
Mr. Gingrich lost Florida and that broke the back of his campaign.
Mr. Cruz’s fundraising is going to change the race. A couple of candidates are probably going to decide they will not enter the race, simply because they know they will not be able to keep up with that kind of fundraising. For some of the others in the race, this will cement the idea that they are not really running for the presidency. Instead, they are now running for a cabinet position in the Cruz administration.
The money primary is already underway in the presidential race. Ted Cruz is the hands-down winner in this race.
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