Even though Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was the first politician to officially announce his plans to run for president in 2016, pollster John Zogby says that he doesn't think Cruz is a serious contender.
"Yesterday may have proved to be the biggest day of his campaign," Zogby, senior analyst for Zogby Analytics, told J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV on Tuesday.
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"He caught a good news cycle. He got a lot of attention, first out of the gate, but I'm not sure where he goes from here," he explained.
The reason Zogby thinks that Cruz won't be very competitive is because "there is a crowded field, but there's also some other problems" the Texas Republican will face trying to win the various primaries.
"He is a darling of the tea party, but at the same time, he has to ask the question, suppose he does win in Iowa, we've seen that kind of situation before with Pat Buchanan. Where does he go from there?" he asked.
"New Hampshire is a very tough state for a social conservative — 40 percent of the vote in a New Hampshire primary are made up of independents, many of whom are moderate independents," he explained.
"He can go onto South Carolina, but arguably because he's a flame thrower and because he has opposition in his own party, meaning in the Senate and the party establishment as well as from other candidates, it's likely that one or two other social conservatives may very well stay in going into South Carolina just to block him," the pollster contends.
"Then after South Carolina is Florida, and you've got [former Florida Gov.] Jeb Bush and [Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio and those two guys are definitely going to be in by Florida no matter what happens to them on the first three primaries," he said.
In addition, he says that Cruz "has the kind of support from people who are angry.
"That may very well be a good thing, but at some point, shouldn't he put together some victories?" he said. "He's made political hay out of anger and again that could be a good thing, but remember Americans ultimately want to elect a president of the United States, not somebody to stomp their fist on the table.
"We're going to have to see that serious policy side of Ted Cruz in order to round up that image," he added.
If Cruz does want to be successful, Zogby argues, he needs to become the leader of the social conservative "pack," which includes candidates such as Dr. Ben Carson, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. And at that point he could become "the leader against the establishment," which could be "very, very interesting."