Non-evangelical Iowa Republicans hate Ted Cruz as much as everybody else does

Donald Trump might not be the biggest worry among Iowa Republicans—not now that Ted Cruz is gaining steam there. And since he claimed the coveted (?) endorsement of the House bug-eyed caucus leader, Rep. Steve King. Via the Plum Line at the Washington Post, the mission of many "concerned and angry" Iowa Republicans "is as simple as ABC: Anybody But Cruz."

Apparently, according to the National Review, these Republicans "view Cruz, the new front-runner, as a phony opportunist who has pandered to Evangelicals for political gain, particularly in Iowa." Cruz is doing well with evangelicals in the state, pulling about 45 percent. While he might be a hit with evangelicals and Steve King and Louie Gohmert, pretty much the rest of the Republican party loathes him as much as his Senate colleagues do. That's a big problem for them, as Plum Line's Paul Waldman writes.

Being the evangelicals’ favored candidate is never enough on its own to win the GOP nomination—just ask Santorum and Huckabee—but it can be enough to win Iowa, which produces a thrust of momentum, even if it’s sometimes temporary. If Cruz can hold on to those voters, he’ll win there, and at a minimum keep himself in the first tier as losing candidates drop out and the delegates begin to pile up. Which has plenty of Republicans very concerned.

They basically need a Rubio—someone they see as able to appeal outside traditional Republican constituencies—to take out Donald Trump. If Cruz sucks all the oxygen out of the early primaries for Rubio, they could end up with Cruz and Trump leading the pack. Which is exactly what they deserve.