https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/10/why-ted-cruz-is-still-in-very-very-good-shape-in-2-graphics/Ted Cruz didn't do well in New Hampshire on Tuesday, finishing in third place behind Donald Trump and John Kasich. But it's hard to say he has lost any real momentum; New Hampshire just wasn't a good state for a candidate like him.
And moving forward, it's easy to see how the Granite State could one day look like a very minor bump along Cruz's path to the Republican presidential nomination.
[After New Hampshire, candidates face new ground amid reshuffled races]
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Cruz's win in the Iowa caucuses last week was, as it has been for every recent GOP Iowa winner, heavily reliant on evangelical Christians. He over-performed among this group, beating Trump 34-22 among them.
Two points here. The first is that, yes, Iowa is a very evangelical state, and not every state -- read: New Hampshire -- has the same makeup. In fact, New Hampshire is the least religious state in the country, according to Gallup, and PRRI reports only about 1 in 10 residents is an evangelical.
In this regard, though, the next few weeks of the GOP race look a whole lot more like Iowa than New Hampshire. And that is fantastic for Cruz.
Witness the below map.
It may not shock you to see the most heavily-white-evangelical states clustered in the South. Many of them are significantly more evangelical than Iowa, where 64 percent of the GOP electorate last week was evangelical.
And here is the second point: The most evangelical states are pretty heavily front-loaded in this process -- thanks in large part to the "SEC Primary" on March 1.
South Carolina on Feb. 20 and a whopping six of the 11 states holding contests on Super Tuesday/"SEC Primary" Day on the first of March have more evangelicals than Iowa does.
And here's where it gets even better for Cruz: Heavily Christian Kansas and Louisiana and heavily evangelical Kentucky vote just four days later on March 5, followed by heavily evangelical Mississippi on March 8 and heavily evangelical Missouri and North Carolina on March 15. In fact, if you exclude Maryland and West Virginia from the definition of "Southern," the Southern states will all have voted five weeks from now.
The below chart, from The Post's graphics team (more here!) is in order of nominating contests.
That could make for a very nice string of victories for Cruz. And if you're him, the above has to make you feel very good about your chances.
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I've noticed as well that of the next 19 contests, 14 are in the conservative south or west, 4 are in the north.
Cruz needs to as much as possible use SC and Nevada as his focus the next couple of weeks, in that priority, but do some swing to bolster the efforts of the advance team out there working Colorado, Kansas, and all the southern states coming up fast. He could sew up alot of delegates by mid-March.
