Endorsement battles pit Cruz, Trump
Two candidates supported by the president have defeated those backed by the senator
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz lost to President Donald Trump again.
Twice in two months, the former Republican presidential rivals were pitted against one another as they endorsed opposing candidates in different parts of the nation. And in both cases, Trump has prevailed, countering critics who have suggested that as his own poll numbers have slipped, his endorsements would carry less weight.
The most recent example was Thursday night in Tennessee, where Cruz had traveled twice in 10 days and sent $5,000 through a political action committee he controls to support Nashville surgeon Manny Sethi who was up against former ambassador Bill Hagerty, whom Trump had endorsed earlier in the race.
“It’s the conservative warriors who are marching in side by side with the president, and I’m confident that’s what Manny will do,” said Cruz during a rally in Memphis earlier in the week. “I’m proud to be here to support this campaign.”
But Cruz’s support wasn’t enough. Hagerty defeated Sethi by 12 percentage points Thursday and will be a heavy favorite to win the Senate seat in November.
But more than a battle between former 2016 rivals, Hagerty-Sethi and other contests around the nation have been about what the Republican Party will look like after Trump leaves
office, said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
He said it is clear Cruz wants to run for president again and is trying to build a network that can help him in 2024.
“What you have to do is build a coalition of supporters,” Sabato said. “Cruz is really out engaging in an age-old ritual of cultivating party leaders from state to state.”
And he’s far from alone in that endeavor. In Tennessee, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, was an aggressive supporter of Hagerty, as were former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and Vice President Mike Pence — all potential 2024 contenders.
Cotton was on stage Thursday night when Hagerty claimed victory and made clear how important Trump was in the race.
“I have a very special person to thank — I just got off the phone with him backstage,” Hagerty said. “That’s President Donald Trump.”
It was the second time this summer that Cruz jumped into a race opposite of Trump and other potential 2024 contenders.
In a July South Texas primary, Trump and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida endorsed Tony Gonzales and Cruz endorsed Raul Reyes Jr. for the 23rd Congressional District. Gonzales won the race by just 45 votes, though Reyes has called for a recount of the results.
And earlier in the year, Cruz endorsed former New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien in the U.S. Senate GOP primary, but O’Brien dropped out of the race after struggling to raise money. Cotton has endorsed Don Bolduc in the primary that will be decided on Sept. 8.
Cruz isn’t without success. In Kansas, he backed Republican Amanda Adkins in a crowded primary field in which eight members of Congress were backing another candidate. Adkins won and advanced to the November general election.
Later this month, Cruz has a stake in the Florida primary elections, where he has endorsed doctor Leo Valentin in the 7th Congressional district in a primary set for Aug. 18.
Cruz has not been shy about the prospect of running for president again, telling an audience last year he could run again.
“Look, I hope to run again,” Cruz said at a discussion organized by the Christian Science Monitor. “We came very, very close in 2016. And it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
Cruz in 2016 emerged as Trump's top rival battling in an often nasty primary. But Cruz said after the election he met with President Trump at Trump Tower in New York and pledged to help him get his agenda passed. In 2018, that ultimately led to Trump holding a rally in Houston to help support Cruz’s re-election.