Virginia@: An honor and a privilege

Friday, May 6, 2016

An honor and a privilege

Jobs. Freedom. Security.

Hello Robert,

On March 23rd, 2015 -- just over thirteen months ago -- Ted announced his campaign for President of the United States. While, ultimately, we fell short in this particular election, I wanted to take a moment to look back with you at what we accomplished together.

Early on, Ted was just one of seventeen major candidates seeking the Republican nomination, and he was immediately dismissed by the media and the elite political chattering class. But we knew something they didn't. We had you.

Immediately you hit the ground running. You made 3,568,102 phone calls. You walked your neighborhoods and knocked on 503,818 doors in the heat of summer and the cold of winter. Thousands of you packed up and camped out in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Texas to spearhead our GOTV efforts. In total, over 317,000 of you signed up to volunteer with our campaign -- to donate your time, talent, and treasure for a cause greater than each of us.

State by state and coalition by coalition, we built the strongest and most impressive leadership teams comprised of community leaders willing to put their names on the line. A big thank you to each of the members of our leadership teams!

Financially, you stepped up in a way that was bigger than anything I could have imagined. When we launched our campaign, we had hoped and budgeted for raising around $50 million. Because of you, we blew that goal out of the water. We raised over $90 million from more than 1.5 million contributions spanning 76% of all zip codes in the United States.

With these financial and political resources, this campaign (which, by the way, was immediately written off as hopeless) went on to win in Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, Kansas, Maine, Idaho, Utah, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Wyoming. With a crowded field early, Ted staked out a clear second place in the delegate race.

From the beginning of this campaign, I always said that when this race got to a head-to-head matchup, Ted would emerge victorious. Due to some candidates remaining in the race -- long after it became clear they had no viable path to victory -- that one-on-one matchup never materialized, and the vote against Donald Trump was never able to fully consolidate around one single candidate.

Ted pledged to remain in this race so long as there was a viable path to victory. Unfortunately, on Tuesday it became clear that path had been closed. As a result, in Indianapolis Ted announced the suspension of his campaign for president, but not his fight for liberty, for the Constitution, and to reignite the promise of our great nation:

I hope you'll join Ted and me in resolving that:

I am not suspending our fight for liberty. I am not suspending our fight to defend the Constitution, to defend the Judeo-Christian values that built America.

Our movement will continue. And I give you my word I will continue to fight this fight with all of my strength and my ability. We will continue to fight next week. And next month. And next year. We will continue as long as God grants us the strength to fight on. For one thing remains as true today as it was forty years ago: In this fight for the long-term future of America, there is no substitute for victory.

It's been an honor and a privilege to join this fight with each and every one of you. While we may have fallen short in this one election, this is about something bigger than any single campaign. This is about the future of our nation -- it's about what kind of nation we will leave behind for our kids and grandkids.

Together we started a movement to restore our Constitution and bring back that "Shining City Upon a Hill." That movement will go on, and I look forward to the opportunity to continue fighting side by side with Ted and each of you.

For liberty,

Jeff Roe
Campaign Manager
Cruz for President