Ted Cruz is the favorite to win Alabama (and four more things you should know)

TRUSSVILLE, Ala. — US Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz delivered a half-hour stem-winder to a raucous group of conservative activists and GOP primary voters on Sunday, attracting a crowd so large the fire marshal funneled several hundred event attendees into an overflow room with a live video feed. In total, upwards of 1,500 Alabamians packed into the Trussville Civic Center to see the man many of them believe could be the next President of the United States.

.@tedcruz greeting overflow room at Trussville, Alabama stop of "Take Off With Ted" Cruz Country Christmas tour pic.twitter.com/SCd0dB1Zxz

— Jessica Hopper (@jesshop23) December 20, 2015

Yellowhammer was on hand for the event, taking it all in, interacting with primary voters and spending time with the senator and his campaign team backstage. Here are five takeaways from Sunday’s event that you should know:

In recent Republican presidential primaries, Alabamians have gravitated toward a populist conservative candidate who is closely aligned with the evangelical base. In 2008 that candidate was Mike Huckabee. In 2012 it was Rick Santorum. Ted Cruz is looking more and more like that candidate for 2016.

Only Donald Trump has drawn larger crowds than Cruz to his Alabama campaign stops, but part of the attraction to seeing the billionaire businessman in person is purely the spectacle. The vast majority of Ted Cruz rally-goers in Alabama are hardcore Republican primary voters who are going to show up on election day. Cruz clearly enjoys the retail politics aspect of campaigning, and that pays off in a state like Alabama, where voters are not yet accustomed to seeing presidential candidates up close and personal.

Alabamians like a fighter, and the Texas senator clearly relishes that role.

There is not any reliable public polling data on the Yellowhammer State right now, but Cruz appears to be in the strongest position going into Christmas.

Ted Cruz has an ally in Senator Jeff Sessions, who is probably the most popular political figure in Alabama by a substantial margin. Sessions spoke at Cruz’s South Alabama campaign rally on Saturday and publicly backed him in an ongoing spat with rival candidate Marco Rubio.

Rubio has criticized Cruz for offering an amendment to the Gang of Eight’s 2013 immigration bill that would have granted legal status, but removed the possibility of citizenship, to individuals in the country illegally. Rubio said the amendment was proof that Cruz supported “legalizing people who are in this country illegally.”

Cruz says now the amendment was meant as a “poison pill” to kill the whole package, or at the very least as a way to expose that what Democrats really wanted was not to “bring people out of the shadows,” as they often claimed, but rather to grant citizenship to millions of future Democratic voters. By removing citizenship from the equation, Cruz allies said he was exposing Democrats’ true motives.

Sessions was visibly perturbed by Rubio’s characterization of Cruz’s actions.

“Let me tell you, I was there every step of the way. Ted Cruz was on my side, he fought this legislation all the way through,” declared Sessions.

Sessions has not endorsed a candidate, and has indicated he may not. But while he gladly came out on stage with Trump earlier this year because the real estate mogul had essentially adopted Sessions’ long-held positions on immigration and trade, Cruz is far more likely to garner Sessions’ formal support, if and when the times comes.

For many Alabamians, Sessions’ seal of approval is the gold standard in a Republican primary.

Presidential campaigns consist of a lot of hurry up and wait, and Senator Cruz passes the time between speeches, interviews and meet-and-greets just like the rest of us probably would — by playing games on his iPhone.

One of the biggest takeaways from the time we spent together back stage was just how, well, normal his family is. He was playing games on his iPhone as other speakers warmed up the crowd. His kids were sitting on the floor drawing. His wife, Heidi, was quizzing a foreign exchange student on the differences between the American political system and her home country’s. When Mrs. Cruz took to the stage and her mic did not immediately work, Senator Cruz hopped up to urge the staff to fix the problem quickly to keep his wife from experiencing any unnecessary moments of awkwardness in front of the crowd.

Politicians are often caricatured, drug through the mud and heavily scrutinized by the media. On the other hand, they often put up a public facade that is far from reality.

The Cruz’s seemed entirely genuine. If they are faking it, they’re doing a really dang good job, even behind-the-scenes.

When Senator Marco Rubio came into Alabama several weeks ago, his campaign declined to do any local press. Cruz and his wife have both sat for one-on-one interviews with Yellowhammer and the campaign carved out time on Sunday for a press gaggle that included both local and national media.

Rubio campaign chairman Bill Armistead acknowledged this difference in an interview with the Texas Tribune over the weekend. “We’re not looking for publicity right now,” he said, saying the campaign is focusing more on organizing than garnering free media attention.

Senator Rubio’s fundraising efforts in the state have attracted a who’s who of business heavyweights — they raised approximately $250,000 in a single day several weeks ago — while Cruz has relied predominantly on small-dollar grassroots donors.

Rubio’s campaign rally in Guntersville was a well-staged, made-for-television style event, while Cruz’s Trussville rally had the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants feel of controlled chaos. Even their stump speeches are a contrast in style. Both candidates are gifted orators, but Rubio relies on his abilities as a storyteller while every single Cruz remark is an applause line.

None of these observations are good or bad, but with Cruz and Rubio seemingly on a collision course, it will be interesting to see which approach wins out in the end.

“Alabama’s going to play a critical role in this year’s Republican presidential election,” Cruz told the crowd in Trussville on Sunday, and he’s proving he really believes that by repeatedly returning to the Yellowhammer State.

You can get a sense of a campaign’s priorities by observing where the candidate spends his or her time, because to a presidential campaign, there is nothing more valuable. Cruz has spent the week barnstorming across eight mostly southern states that will participate in the so called SEC Primary. For the first time next year, Alabama will join Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia to hold its presidential primary election on the same day (March 1st), creating a Southern Super Tuesday.

Cruz is well positioned to win Iowa, where the first votes of the 2016 election cycle take place on February 1st. A month later the SEC Primary could serve as a sort of “southern firewall” that propels the Texas senator to the nomination.

Alabama voters are turning out for campaign rallies in big numbers, showing they plan to take seriously their new role as players in presidential politics.

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