Feb. 23--REPORTING FROM LAS VEGAS -- Ted Cruz ousted a top campaign aide and Marco Rubio rolled out several high-profile endorsements Monday as the two battled across Nevada on the eve of the state's Republican caucuses, which Donald Trump was heavily favored to win.
Already fighting accusations of underhanded campaigning, Cruz asked his communications director, Rick Tyler, to resign after Tyler posted a video on social media and claimed that Rubio could be heard disparaging the Bible. The allegation was false and Tyler apologized.
"This was a grave error of judgment," Cruz told reporters in Las Vegas. Even if the charge had been true, the senator from Texas said, "we are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate."
Trump was quick to weigh in, noting he won the evangelical vote in Saturday's South Carolina primary despite Cruz's months-long courtship and positioning as the candidate of Christian conservatives.
"The reason that Ted Cruz lost the Evangelicals in S.C. is because he is a world class LIAR, and Evangelicals do not like liars!" Trump said on Twitter.
Rubio, speaking to reporters before Cruz addressed the matter, demanded an explanation.
"Who is going to be held accountable for making up this video?" the senator from Florida said to reporters in Las Vegas before flying north to stops in Elko, Reno and Minden. "Who was held accountable for lying about Ben Carson?"
Cruz apologized to Carson during a debate this month after the Cruz campaign spread a false report the retired neurosurgeon, who vied in Iowa for the same evangelical voters as Cruz, was quitting the race.
Last week in South Carolina, Cruz had to explain away his campaign's use of a misleading picture that had been altered to show a smiling Rubio shaking hands with President Obama.
In the latest flap, Tyler posted a video with subtitles quoting Rubio as saying that there were "not many answers" in the Bible. In fact, Rubio said in the video -- which was hard to understand -- that the Bible has "all the answers."
Cruz was less than contrite.
At a news conference at a YMCA in Las Vegas, Cruz accused Rubio of "trying to distract the topic from his own record" by leveling charges of dirty politics.
"They have a long record they've earned in South Carolina of engaging in this kind of trickery and impugning the integrity of whoever their opponent is to distract the attention," Cruz said.
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The two are battling to emerge as the alternative to Trump, who managed to handily win New Hampshire and South Carolina even though he received only about a third of the vote in each state. The two contenders, along with Ohio Gov. John Kasich, hope that eventually anti-Trump voters will consolidate behind a single candidate who could then garner majority support.
Seeking to build on his second-place finish in South Carolina and suggest a rallying around his candidacy, Rubio announced a number of endorsements from fellow GOP lawmakers, including Nevada's Republican Sen. Dean Heller. Also jumping aboard were Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas.
Campaigning at the Peppermill hotel-casino in Reno, Rubio largely ignored his GOP rivals and attacked the Democratic opposition.
"The winner of Nevada's Democratic caucuses is under FBI investigation," Rubio said, alluding to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
"Sanders is a socialist," he said of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who calls himself a democratic socialist. "If you want to live in a socialist country, why don't you move to a socialist country?"
With only about 48 hours to campaign ahead of the caucuses, there was little chance for others to overtake Trump in Nevada, where he is seen as a strong front-runner.
"Rubio may get some nice bounce from his South Carolina showing and some momentum from Jeb suspending his campaign," said Ryan Erwin, who was a Nevada strategist for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush until his exit from the race Saturday night. "Cruz will pick up some rural voters concerned about federal lands and government overreach.
"But it would be an upset if Trump did not win," Erwin said.
A victory in Nevada, on top of his victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina, would put Trump in a strong position heading into next week's big batch of Super Tuesday contests and make the effort to overtake the national front-runner an even steeper climb for Cruz, Rubio and others.
Finnegan reported from Las Vegas and Lee from Reno. Times staff writer Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report.
michael.finnegan@latimes.com
kurtis.lee@latimes.com
Twitter: @finneganLAT, @kurtisalee
