title:  Why Ted Cruz Winning The Iowa Caucus Could Doom The GOP
text: Texas Senator Ted Cruz has won the 2016 Republican presidential caucus in Iowa. Cruz won with 99% of Iowa precincts reporting in. He earned 28% of the vote, with about 46,400 Republicans casting their vote for the social conservative.Cruz beat out Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, beating out the result of the highly respected Des Moines Register poll, that had put Trump ahead of Cruz by 5%.Many observers believe that Cruz was able to overcome Trump s constant media appearances and a campaign that sucked up a lot of the oxygen in the political world.While Cruz has won the caucus, history has not been kind to recent winners. The last two winners, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, received a bump in support after winning the caucus, but were not able to martial the religious right on to success in other states like South Carolina and New Hampshire.Cruz also faces headwinds from Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who did better than expected in a third place finish. It can be expected that money from the Republican establishment will flow to Rubio, continuing the stampede away from Jeb Bush who only managed a single digit in Iowa and is not expected to be a strong contender in New Hampshire.In a strange turn of events, Trump could act as a spoiler candidate, wedged between Cruz and Rubio but without being beholden to big ticket donors or the party elite.For the general election, many Democrats are probably salivating over a candidate like Cruz. He is anti-choice, a darling of the extremist right, and a candidate who has based his entire run on turning out far right voters instead of even remotely attempting to appeal to moderate, swing voters. Trump may have scared the party so much that Cruz now appears  acceptable  to them, but not to America.Featured image via Flickr