Laura Ingraham If Trump and Cruz don't stop infighting and work together to defeat Rubio he will win

The Case for a Cruz-Trump Coalition
The ugly battle between the populist front-runners provides Rubio an opening to win it all
by Laura Ingraham
If the internecine warfare between the two top populist candidates continues, the conservative majority of the Republican Party could once again be forced to live with a nominee chosen by the Establishment.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump placed first and second in Iowa. But if they don’t now combine forces and put aside their rancor, they may each find themselves losing the nomination to the third-place finisher, Establishment favorite Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Entering New Hampshire, Cruz and Trump have to play it smart. Cruz must recognize that he needs Trump to win in the Granite State. If Rubio wins instead, he will gain so much momentum that he will be almost impossible to stop.

Iowa GOP caucus voters who said they are 'very conservative'
Ted Cruz 44%
Donald Trump 21%
Marco Rubio 15%
Ben Carson 9%
Rand Paul 3%
Mike Huckabee 3%
Carly Fiorina 2%
Rick Santorum 2%
Chris Christie 1%
Jeb Bush 1%
John Kasich 0%
Cruz is smart and must know he can’t take the Granite State, which has fewer of the conservative and evangelical voters that drove him to victory in Iowa. According to Iowa exit polls, Cruz garnered a third of the evangelical vote and was the choice of 44 percent of voters who consider themselves “very conservative.”

Trump, on the other hand, is up by 20 points in New Hampshire and has a real chance of victory — a win that could send the soaring Rubio straight back to earth, possibly wrecking his chances and providing a major blow to the hopes of the Establishment.

Regardless of how much Establishment gloating and snide media reaction you’re hearing about Trump’s second-place finish in Iowa, he has actually performed pretty well so far. Sure, he would like to have come in first, but he still racked up more votes than Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney did in 2012. And it’s still not clear that skipping the debate was a mistake. He could very well have come in third behind Rubio if that had gone badly. Trump remains strong.

Cruz exits Iowa legitimately galvanized by his victory. He should get huge credit for turning out a massive number of voters. Hard work and old-fashioned retail politics paid off in the end. But now he has to recognize political reality — that the race at this point is more of a battle between the base and the Establishment than between Cruz and Trump.


[link to www.lifezette.com]