As noted in our last campaign update on Senator Ted Cruz, he is deeply unpopular among Washington lobbyists, Congressional Republicans, and those who take their cues from those traditional GOP leaders. In fact, some among those constituencies admit that they’d prefer to nominate populist bomb-thrower Donald Trump, whom some see as a virtual “blank slate” on which they can inscribe their own policy ideas.

But for those concerned with keeping America’s fingers in foreign policy pies, the prospect of Donald Trump is deeply worrisome, Rosie Grey of Buzzfeed reports. Trump went beyond the caution expressed by Rand Paul, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz about the U.S. attempting to topple dictators and “democracy-build” in failed states like Libya and Syria. He has even lavished praise on Russia’s Vladimir Putin. As the Iowa caucuses approach with no sign of a stronger alternative to Trump, some previously hostile groups are cautiously warming up to Cruz. As Grey recounts:

Some of the hawkish figures who Ted Cruz recently dismissed as “crazy neo-con invade-every-country-on-earth and send our kids to die in the Middle East” … say they’d consider supporting Cruz anyway if he’s the last man between Donald Trump and the Republican presidential nomination. …

“What gives people pause is the credentials. That is, wait a minute, this guy went to Princeton and Harvard Law School and you have Alan Dershowitz saying he’s one of the most brilliant students I ever had in 30 years at Harvard Law School, and you’re telling me he sees the world the way Donald Trump does? Is that really credible?” [Elliot] Abrams asked rhetorically. …

Cruz also has skillfully kept channels to key neoconservatives open throughout the campaign season. His top foreign policy adviser, Victoria Coates, is a former aide to Donald Rumsfeld and is respected inside the party.

And finally, when compared to Trump’s rhetoric about foreign affairs, Cruz is considered the lesser of two evils.

Increasingly, writers at National Review — which has been vocally skeptical about Cruz’s supposed brinksmanship in Congress and his willingness to throw other Republicans under the bus — are rallying to Cruz as the figure most likely to stop Donald Trump from hijacking the GOP. (Recall that National Review recently dedicated an entire issue to an unprecedented 22-member symposium, “Conservatives Against Trump.”) NR editor Rich Lowry was scathing in his remarks on establishment Republicans who are toying with the idea of using Trump to stop Ted Cruz, against whom they hold deep personal grudges. Writing at Politico, Lowry called these GOP leaders the “quisling establishment,” using a term derived from Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling. Lowry wrote:

If you look at Donald Trump and think, There’s a man I can deal with. If you tell yourself, He’s utterly without principle and therefore encouragingly malleable. If you wonder, How can I keep my head down, and maybe come out OK during a Trump campaign or even a Trump administration? Well, then, you are a member of the establishment in good standing, and you’ve got a problem.

Lowry explains this apparent political reversal by citing several reasons:

One, Cruz has defied and insulted Beltway insiders. Whatever his other failings, Trump hasn’t said unwelcome things at Senate GOP Conference lunches….

Two, the insiders apparently don’t care about principle or substance. The phrase they repeatedly use about Trump is that he will “get something done.” They don’t specify what the something is, or how he will do it….

Three, some Beltway Republicans have convinced themselves that Trump will be a better general election candidate than Cruz. There is little evidence for this. …

The darkest motive Lowry attributes to the Trumpists among the establishment is outright cynicism:

[S]ome Republican professionals think Trump could effectively “rent” the party for four months, win the nomination and then lose the general election. In this scenario, Trump would do the GOP the favor of easing the way for a new Democratic president who would get several Supreme Court appointments and entrench President Barack Obama’s program, leaving GOP pooh-bahs to resume business as usual. … In the case of Trump, the pungent phrase Cruz used about the Republican establishment during the government shutdown fight is apt. It is indeed the “surrender caucus.”

But the most critical constituency in the battle between Trump and Cruz for first place in places like Iowa, and later South Carolina, isn’t foreign policy wonks or Manhattan-based magazines. It’s evangelical Christians and other strong social conservatives. Trump was buoyed by endorsements from Phyllis Schlafly, Gov. Sarah Palin and Rev. Jerry Falwell, Jr. in recent weeks, but there are signs of a backlash, which would favor Cruz (as well as Sen. Marco Rubio, whose positions on social issues tracks with Cruz’s). Just after the March for Life, leaders of 10 national pro-life organizations — including the politically savvy and highly respected Susan B. Anthony List — signed an open letter to voters whose message was simple: Anyone but Trump. Their letter said:

As pro-life women leaders from Iowa and across the nation, we urge Republican caucus-goers and voters to support anyone but Donald Trump. On the issue of defending unborn children and protecting women from the violence of abortion, Mr. Trump cannot be trusted and there is, thankfully, an abundance of alternative candidates with proven records of pro-life leadership whom pro-life voters can support. …

The next president will be responsible for as many as four nominations to the Supreme Court. Mr. Trump has given us only one indication about the type of judges he would appoint, and it does not bode well for those who would like to see the court overturn Roe v. Wade. Mr. Trump has said his sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, who struck down the Partial Birth Abortion Ban in New Jersey, would be a “phenomenal” choice for the court.

A day later, the influential website CatholicVote followed with its own anti-endorsement of Trump.

Cruz has countered Trump’s high-profile endorsements with a long roster of pro-family Christian leaders who back him, including Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Bob Vanderplaats, and Richard Viguerie, among others, according to a list which the Cruz campaign released to the Stream and other media.

A recent survey by LifeWay Research showed that presidential preference among Protestant pastors skews strongly in Cruz’s direction among Republicans. While 39 percent of GOP-registered pastors are still undecided, 29 percent favor Cruz, 10 percent Ben Carson, 8 percent Marco Rubio, and only 5 percent Donald Trump.