Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday credited his surge in the polls to voters recognizing that he wasn’t a “campaign conservative” like some of his rivals.
He also vowed not to let his campaign turn into mud-slinging fight with his rivals, especially with front-runner Donald Trump, whom he said the new media begs him to attack almost daily.
“I don’t believe Donald Trump is going to be our nominee,” he said at a town hall-style meeting in Iowa. “I actually believe the men and women in this room have something powerful to say about it.”
He said he was grateful to Mr. Trump for the election about fighting Washington. And he said his record of standing up to not only Democrats but to Republican leaders in Washington distinguished him from his rivals on that measure.
That’s why, he said, his campaign had gained momentum in recent weeks.
“We are seeing conservatives uniting behind our campaign,” Mr. Cruz said. “And the reason, I think it is quite straight forward, people are tired of what I call campaign conservatives.”
He described a campaign conservative as a candidate who can “talk a great game when they are on the stump, but they haven’t walked the walk.”
Mr. Cruz surged into second place among Iowa voters, nipping at Mr. Trump’s heels 25 percent to 23 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last week.
“I’m not going to blast Trump, or anybody else. I’m going to focus on laying out my record and my vision and continuing to unite conservatives,” Mr. Cruz said.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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