In First Major Iowa Ads, Cruz Campaign Spotlights Debate Moments

Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is using its first major ad buy in Iowa to highlight some of his most well-received moments in the Republican debates so far. 

The debates, which have proven to be a fundraising and social media boon for Cruz, factor prominently into two TV ads his campaign released late Monday. The pair of spots, along with a radio ad, are set to air over the next three weeks across Iowa, the first-in-the-country caucus state.

Cruz's campaign is spending $315,000 to air the ads, according to spokeswoman Catherine Frazier. The spots released Monday represent the campaign's first substantial foray onto the Iowa airwaves, where it previously had a much smaller buy during the second GOP debate in September.

The first TV ad, a 30-second spot titled "Fight," shows Cruz in the third GOP debate last month in Colorado, touting his efforts to stop President Barack Obama's health care reform law, Obama's executive action on immigration and federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The ad ends with a narrator saying a relatively new campaign slogan: "Leadership you can trust." 

The second TV spot, a minute-long ad titled "Debate," spotlights Cruz's breakout moment in the Colorado event, when he lit into the CNBC's moderators for allegedly unfair questioning. "Finally someone had the guts to tell it like it is," a narrator says before Cruz is shown chastising the moderators for running the show like a "cage match." 

The narrator goes on to say: "The media can't silence him. Washington can't break him. Because everyone knows exactly where he stands."

The radio ad, which clocks in at a minute and is titled "Damage," features a clip of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh lavishing praise on Cruz during his show in October. 

"If you're looking for the Republican candidate who is the most steadfastly opposed to liberalism, whose agenda is oriented toward defeating it, it's Ted Cruz," Limbaugh said.