Conservatives shouldn't kid themselves about Ted Cruz

The 2016 candidate may have the work ethic, but his candidacy is almost as toxic as Donald Trump's

Don't kid yourself.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Jason Miczek)

Ted Cruz isn't messing around. Donald Trump is probably going to come up just short of the number of delegates to win the Republican nomination on the first ballot — and it's mostly Cruz's fault.

Cruz and his campaign team have been working the delegate selection system hard, and grabbing delegates wherever they can find them. From the beginning of the campaign, his outfit has shown itself to be one of the most-savvy, technologically well-equipped, and hardest working units in politics today. It is as if his campaign is saying, "Sure, Donald Trump may end up with more votes by the end, but we will have the delegates, the institutional support, the donor support, and the working knowledge to run a national campaign. Trump won't."

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.