Cruz Shakes Up Senate Office, Expands Political Operation

Source: National Review | July 6, 2016 | Eliana Johnson & Tim Alberta

Two new nonprofits and staff changes are designed to strengthen the Cruz machine for another run.

Ted Cruz has been conspicuously silent since his return to Capitol Hill from the campaign trail, but the gears, as always, are turning. Behind closed doors Cruz has been supervising the vast expansion of his electoral enterprise, integrating the operations of his campaign team — policy, political, financial — in an effort to harness his newfound national following with an eye on 2020.

Central to these plans is the creation of two new affiliated nonprofits, their names to be announced in the coming days, which will effectively keep Cruz’s political machinery humming over the next four years. These groups, one a 501(c)3 and the other a 501(c)4, will be responsible for everything from championing Cruz’s legislative priorities to maintaining his donor database and coordinating his early-state travel. They will be an outgrowth of Cruz’s existing campaign apparatus, the nucleus of which has remained active in the aftermath of his departure from the race on May 3.

These developments have scrambled the pecking order inside the senator’s orbit. Cruz staffers learned Wednesday morning that David Polyansky — a political strategist who was senior adviser to the presidential campaign — will become chief of staff in Cruz’s Senate office, replacing Paul Teller, who will be departing to serve as senior adviser to the nonprofit groups. Mark Campbell, the national political director of Cruz’s presidential campaign, will serve as executive director and board chairman of the organizations.

Bryan English, who served as Cruz’s Iowa-state director, and Brian Phillips, who ran the campaign’s rapid-response communications from Houston, will also join the allied groups, which Campbell says are intended to build on the movement inspired by the Cruz campaign, educating and mobilizing “grassroots leaders as to the importance of conservative principles.” The new operation will launch with roughly half a dozen staffers working remotely, though Cruz officials expect eventually to have offices in Washington and Texas. With the exception of Teller, who will join from Cruz’s Senate office, the organizations’ staffers will consist entirely of aides from the senator’s presidential campaign.

The moves send a clear signal, if there was any doubt, that Cruz, the runner-up for this year’s Republican nomination, is preparing for another run in 2020. Polyansky, an attorney and former Marine, has extensive experience in electoral politics and none on Capitol Hill. Indeed, his only legislative stint came in the 1990s, when he served as chief of staff for the late at-large Houston city councilman Joe Roach. Polyansky says he objects to “the mindset of Washington that you have to work on the Hill or have 25 years of legislative experience.” He believes his time working on campaigns across the country — and living in Texas, among Cruz’s constituents — gives him a “unique” understanding of how people view government beyond the beltway. “Hopefully, I bring a little more to the table than just a political background,” he says.

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Equally intriguing is the reassignment of Teller, who is both a longtime Hill staffer and fixture of Washington’s conservative movement. As Cruz’s chief of staff, Teller used his wealth of connections to help the freshman senator build alliances with D.C.’s most prominent conservative actors and institutions — duties he will continue from his perch in the new-look political operation.

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Polyansky expects to start in the next two weeks.

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