2016 Republican Nomination Poll - January 2016

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The main problem for Cruz is he comes across as insincere. I don't doubt somebody with his political views or even his actionscould win , but he seems like such a fake politician. He's clever, yes, (and certainly a better general candidate than, say, Yeb!) but he (like Carleton Sneed) gives off the vibe of a villain in a TV show made for kids. IN a personality driven election, your temperament matters.

Also "the executive branch overstepping its boundaries" is a pressing concern for about 3% of the population as a whole. That's why Trump doesn't bother with such phrases - why would a blue collar voter in Michigan give two craps about constitutional niceties? When people say "I don't like Washington" they mean many many many things, and the only way to grab all (or even the majority) of them is to be vague and non-committal in how you will change Washington (Obama and many other leaders around the world). Cruz has not been vague in his plans for Washington at all - and that will definitely put people off.

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Clinton has been doing this for decades, has a proven appeal to various important demographics, and she can use her husband as a proxy who does it in his sleep, as well as about six thousand other allies to be wheeled out to target specific groups.  Also Republicans (by which I mean the relatively sane GOP strategists who aren't dreaming they will somehow magically get Hispanics back by wearing ponchos or something) have a different target audience that they need to fire up than Democrats who need to fire up minority groups, who like the Clintons anyway; and young voters, who can be prodded in to the Clinton camp by Obama/Sanders' endorsements. Cruz has no proxies he can use, because everyone - aside from relatively anonymous Senators (said no blue-collar worker ever: "Oh Jeff Sessions likes him! That settles it!") - hates his guts.

Cruz will have to go out and prattle on to the GOP's target group - "enthusable" blue collar workers - whose main concerns are not "executive overreach" by any accounts (it's probably immigration and trade, two issues where Crux is less solidly "conservative" on than others) about arcane matters. There is a strong "small C conservative" vibe to Midwest America, but Cruz is not the man to pick it up - too "radical", not enough "conservative".

 The only groups that Cruz seems to be locking down are hardcore evangelicals (which matter less nowadays) and libertarians (which never have and never will matter). And he's going to have to pull it alone without the bulk of party machinery. I mean, one can present oneself as anti-both-parties and still win against all odds (indeed one man who certainly could is currently the GOP frontrunner) but it won't be Teddy.