Ted Cruz wins big boost from evangelicals

Ted Cruz

The Family Research Council's president, Tony Perkins, rallied with dozens of different evangelical leaders in a closed-door meeting earlier this month to decide on which Republican to support for president via prayer and discussion, ultimately selecting, after several votes: Ted Cruz.

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The 50 or so who reportedly attended the meeting are preparing to announce their endorsements over the next few weeks, the Daily Beast reported.

The National Review said the meeting took place in a boardroom at the Sheraton Hotel in Tyson's Corner in Virginia, and that the voting process took considerable time because those in attendance couldn't decide between Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio. The news outlet reported: "Four times already they had voted between two candidates, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and four times the result had been the same. Cruz had a majority, but not the 75 percent supermajority required to bind the group's membership to support him."

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National Review said the evangelical leaders have been meeting off and on since 2014, under the name of "The GROUP," to reach consensus on the 2016 White House candidate. This week's meeting was aimed at solidifying those previous discussions with a vote that would determine who the leadership would recommend members of their respective groups support for the 2016 election.

And it came down to "Cruz the Fighter versus Rubio the Communicator," the National Review said.

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Five ballot counts later, "the GROUP" chose Cruz with a supermajority. And within hours, a handful of endorsements for Cruz followed, first from activist Richard Viguerie, and then from National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown and the Family Leader's Bob Vaander Plaats.

Expected to come, National Review said: Endorsements from James Dobson, founder and chairman emeritus of Focus on the Family; from Ken Cuccinelli of Senate Conservatives Fund; and from Perkins personally.

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As National Review noted, the endorsements are a substantial boost for Cruz's campaign.

"It represents more than a public-relations victory for Cruz," the news outlet opined. "The senator has long said, both publicly and privately, that his best chance to secure the Republican nomination is to unite the conservative base behind him — and that the best way of doing so is to earn the backing of high-profile activist leaders in hopes that their endorsements trigger a cascade of support down to the grassroots level."