Ted Cruz Now Has a 'National Prayer Team'

Ted Cruz is making a major play for the most powerful constituent there is: God. On Thursday, the Cruz campaign announced the formation of a "national prayer team" that will get weekly emails with prayer requests from the candidate and his wife, as well as an invitation to a weekly 20-minute "prayer conference call," the New York Times reports. “Our nation is in desperate need of God’s favor—these are dangerous days for America,” Salon quotes Cruz's statement on the formation of the team as saying. It will get down to praying Dec. 1. The Times reports a Cruz spokesperson had a more down-to-earth take on the team: “I don’t have a political or tactical angle on it. It is what it is. It’s a group of people who wanted to get together and pray for Ted and his wife.”

Cruz says his national prayer team will “establish a direct line of communication between our campaign and the thousands of Americans who are lifting us up before the Lord," the Times reports. Cruz has been intensely focused on getting support from evangelical Christians, holding religious rallies, appearing at churches, and railing against so-called attacks on religious freedoms. According to Politico, the efforts are working, with evangelical leaders increasingly moving to support Cruz. The Cruz campaign identified 400 religious leaders from whom it wanted support. It's now gotten it from more than half of them. And while their flocks still tend to support his opponent Ben Carson, Politico reports that could start to change soon. (More Ted Cruz stories.)