The Washington Free Beacon's Lachlan Markay appeared on Fox Business Tuesday to discuss the viability of Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) as the potential standard-bearer of the Republican Party in 2016.
Cruz scored a victory in the Iowa caucus Monday night, finishing first with 28 percent of the vote to defeat longtime frontrunner Donald Trump (24 percent). Fellow freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) finished in third place at 23 percent.
Fox Business host Neil Cavuto discussed Cruz as someone trying to position himself as one who could bridge a political divide and reach out to Reagan Democrats, but many Republican establishment figures have said Cruz can hardly appeal to other people in his own party.
"What were the Reagan Democrats are now for the most part what we consider establishment Republicans, and the Democratic Party, whether intentionally or not, over the last few years, has really purged a lot of these moderates from their ranks, and a lot of that had to do with very unpopular policies under President Obama," Markay said. "A lot of those people have migrated over to the Republican side and you see them backing Ted Cruz's competitors for the most part, so I'm not really sure who he's talking to there because these are the folks who are really putting up a fight to his nomination."
Cavuto wondered whether Cruz could be a nominee Republicans could rally around if there were hard feelings after a tough primary fight.
"I don't think it's necessarily division that's driving the moderates of the party in one direction or another, and I think evidence for that is Donald Trump actually won the moderate vote, people who consider themselves moderates, last night," Markay said.
"That's a very good point," Cavuto said.
"Ted Cruz has a message that he should be pushing," Markay said. "I don't think he needs to really tailor it to one side of the party or another, because he's just going to come off looking like he's pandering a little bit."