Meet Rafael Cruz: Ted Cruz’s secret evangelical weapon

WASHINGTON, Iowa — The chapel doors were firmly closed, but the shouts could be heard on the empty streets outside Marion Avenue Baptist Church here on a recent Sunday evening. “Amen!” someone cried out. “Tell it!” another yelled.

Inside, practically every pew was filled. A few hundred people were there — many of them visitors from nearby towns in this heavily rural part of the state. They sat in rapt attention as a man in a dark suit dramatically paced back and forth in front of the pulpit, speaking with the passionate air of someone determined to save every last sinner from the fiery pits of hell.

“We as a church need to get on our faces before God in repentance,” the man declared, jabbing his finger in the air. “It’s our fault what’s happening in our nation, because we have failed to assume our responsibility.… We have been hiding under the pew. We have believed that the Bible and politics are two things that should not be mixed.”

Grabbing his well-worn Bible, the man thrust it in the air. “Let me tell you,” he said, “this book talks a lot about politics.”

“Yes!” someone called out.

It wasn’t the church’s pastor who was firing up the faithful that night on Marion Avenue. The speaker was Rafael Cruz, the 76-year-old father of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. A Cuban immigrant turned traveling minister, the elder Cruz has been a central figure in his son’s rise on the national political scene. His personal story of religious rebirth and pursuit of the American dream has been the emotional and inspirational backbone of Ted Cruz’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination. And it’s made Rafael Cruz a rock star in his own right among many religious conservatives, who are vital to his son’s White House aspirations.

A tea party favorite who has made religious liberty a central plank of his campaign, Ted Cruz has underperformed in the polls in recent months. But in a move that could pay off as voters begin to pay more attention to the race, he’s positioned himself to be the alternative to other leading candidates, including Donald Trump and Ben Carson — who sit atop most early GOP primary polls in part because of their antiestablishment fervor.

At the same time, his father could prove to be an important secret weapon in one of the fiercest battles inside the GOP nomination contest: the fight to win over the religious right, which is currently split among Cruz and several other contenders in the race, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, and Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who is staunchly anti-abortion.

Perhaps nowhere is that voting bloc more important than Iowa, where social conservatives account for roughly half of Republican caucusgoers. The early voting state’s importance is not lost on the Cruz campaign, which is looking for a win there to gain momentum going into other key primaries. Though the Texas senator has spent far less time campaigning in Iowa than many of his opponents, the elder Cruz has quietly stepped up in his son’s absence, a stand-in many in the state believe is almost as good as having the candidate there himself.