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With Donald J. Trump absent from the debate stage, critics had a chance to focus on the rest of the Republican field. While the verdicts varied, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was seen as starting strong but fading late, while Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had his moments but grew testy at times when faced with tough questions. Some thought Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, had one of his most energetic performances, while the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson barely registered.

In the absence of Donald Trump, the Republican debate moderators and GOP candidates found a new punching bag -- the frontrunner's closest competition in Iowa, Sen. Ted Cruz. Thursday night's Fox News debate at the Iowa Events Center had some competition for ratings, after the field's frontrunner decided not to show. Trump instead held his own event less than three miles from the venue, raising money for veterans and ensuring sole access to the spotlight with just four days until Iowa voters head to the caucuses on Monday.

In the final debate before Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses, Ted Cruz had the worst night of the seven GOP presidential candidates on stage Thursday. That's according to a plurality of the Republican members of The POLITICO Caucus - a panel of strategists, operatives and activists in Iowa and the other three February-voting states: New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The insiders participated in the survey immediately following the debate in Des Moines, an event more notable for the absence of Iowa and national poll-leader Donald Trump than anything else. More than 4-in-10 GOP insiders - given the choice of the seven...

Don't choose your candidate based on who you'd prefer to have a beer with, but whom you trust most to remain aligned with your principles. For me, that's Ted Cruz. Earlier in the primary season, when the frontrunners were just beginning to emerge, I expressed concern that Cruz was untrustworthy. It wasn't just my vaguely bitter recollection of Cruz's actions in the government shutdown fiasco, but something about his personality--the inflection of his voice, the way he too often lowered it to a whisper, the way he paced back and forth across the stage like a fired-up Baptist preacher going...

According to our latest polls-plus forecast, Donald Trump has a 48% chance of winning the Iowa caucuses.

Tonight's Republican debate opened with Megyn Kelly asking about Donald Trump's absence. After thanking Iowans for their hospitality, Sen. Cruz proceeded to call his competitors "stupid, fat, and ugly." Then, turning to Dr. Carson, Cruz said, "And Ben, you're a terrible surgeon."

The Texas senator insists he's never favored a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants, but many of his old colleagues say that's not true. For Latino Republicans who have known Ted Cruz over the last 15 years, the candidate stumping across the country on an anti-immigration platform is not the rising talent they once worked with on the George W. Bush campaign, in the Bush administration, and then as Texas Solicitor General. The Ted Cruz of those years was a whip-smart and audaciously ambitious lawyer who lent his considerable intellectual heft to the policies many Latino Republicans cared most about,...

Good grief. @glennbeck said he lost support for @RandPaul because rand cut deal with McConnell. Cruz cut the same deal at the same time.

The latest KTVT-CBS 11 / Dixie Strategies Poll of over 1,700 likely primary voters in Texas shows a change at the top in the race for the GOP nomination. While Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders numbers are rising, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still dominating among Democrat likely voters. PRIMARY According to the poll taken January 25-26, Texas Senator Ted Cruz now leads real estate mogul Donald Trump among the GOP Candidates by 5 percentage points with Cruz at 30.27% and Trump 25.27% overall. That’s a big change from the previous poll taken in October of 2016 when Dr....

Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said on Thursday that his candidate would be "happy" to debate Ted Cruz once the Texas senator gets a federal judge to rule him eligible to run for president. "Once you've gotten that ruling from the federal judge and you're the last man standing in this presidential contest next to Donald Trump, we'll be happy to have a debate with you one-on-one, anywhere you want, because that's the way the system works," Lewandowski said. "But, as it stands right now, we don't even know if Ted Cruz is legally eligible to run for president...

FLINT, Michigan, January 28, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The mainstream media is once again showing its pro-abortion bias, going so far as to blatantly lie in its reporting. The city of Flint is in the middle of a water disaster, causing lead poisoning and other health problems. Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized "every level of government" for the crisis, said officials should be held accountable for exposing residents to "poisoned water," and called the impact on Flint residents "heartbreaking." Cruz made good on his rhetoric, as his campaign gave out bottled water to Flint women in crisis pregnancy centers,...

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for president, less than a week before the Iowa caucuses. In a release from the Cruz campaign announcing the endorsement, Meadows says Cruz is consistent, conservative and puts the interests of the country first. "We are approaching a historic election that has the potential to fundamentally change our nation as we know it. Ted Cruz is the principled, conservative leader we need in the White House," Meadows said in a news release. "On issue after issue, Cruz has told the truth and done what he said he was going...

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Kelly File,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained to host Megyn Kelly where he saw inconsistencies from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) , one of his opponents for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, on the issues of immigration and the NSA data collection program.

A Tea Party-affiliated congressman has become the latest lawmaker to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination. North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows announced Wednesday night on Fox News that he would throw his support behind Cruz's campaign and join the Texas senator's team in Iowa later this week."We are approaching a historic election that has the potential to fundamentally change our nation as we know it. Ted Cruz is the principled, conservative leader we need in the White House," Rep. Meadows told Greta Van Susteren. "On issue after issue, Cruz has told the truth and done what he said...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/27/donald-trump-ted-cruz-republican-establishment-calculations-column/79407410/

Farfield, Iowa (CNN)The stakes for Ted Cruz heading into the Iowa caucus are getting higher. Donald Trump's decision to skip Thursday's Fox News Channel Republican debate puts Cruz in the spotlight -- for better or worse. Should Cruz do well and end up winning Iowa, he'll have momentum heading into contests past New Hampshire. But should he lose, he may never be able to break through as GOP voters look elsewhere for an anti-Trump candidate. A growing number of Cruz's campaign donors, allies and associates are considering what the road ahead would look like should the Texas senator lose to...

Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File," Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained to host Megyn Kelly where he saw inconsistencies from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) , one of his opponents for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, on the issues of immigration and the NSA data collection program. Paul said those inconsistencies raise questions about his U.S. Senate colleague's "authenticity." "I think the biggest problem that Cruz faces right now is authenticity," Paul said. "He was for the NSA reform, saying the government shouldn't collect all our phone records. But then in the debate, his response to Rubio was, oh...

Glenn Beck then goes on to say the deal with Mitch is why he dropped support for Rand Paul and yet supports Ted Cruz. Here’s the problem…. Actually, here’s the lie… Senator Rand Paul and Senator Ted Cruz made the same deal, together, at exactly the same time. Stop – Repeat ! “The deal”, as Beck describes it, was actually real – and did actually take place. The deal was to go along with Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell’s overall objectives, electoral objectives AND legislative objectives, as the GOP entered into the 2014 mid-term election cycle. The deal, which few...

Hollow or not, Donald Trump's threat to boycott the final GOP forum before Iowa votes has complicated Ted Cruz's game plan, forcing the Texan to prepare for two different debates -- one in which he tangles directly with the front-runner and another that sets up the senator as the largest target on stage. With hours until debate time, Cruz's campaign still says it thinks Trump's pledge to skip the forum is a stunt. "Donald Trump will be at the debate," Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler Tyler predicted. "Mark my words."

Tonight on the Mark Levin Radio Show, Ted Cruz told CR's Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin that he is challenging Donald Trump to a one on one debate.  He suggested that the debate be held on talk radio, and that it be a Megyn Kelly free zone. Listen:Cruz Challenges Trump To Debate (Audio)The challenge comes after Trump said he would not participate in the Fox News debate on Thursday January 28, 2016.Cruz told Levin, "the fact that Donald is now afraid to appear on the debate stage. That he doesn't want his record questioned. I think that reflects a lack of respect for the...