CLEVELAND — Ted Cruz saw his hopes of securing the Republican nomination shattered in early May with a loss in Indiana, but now he is set to make a return to the national spotlight when he takes the stage at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night.
With this return comes uncertainty, as supporters of the Texas senator are not entirely sure what he will do in the future or even in his speech.
“That is a great, big question,” said Iowa Rep. Steve King when asked what to expect on Wednesday. King was a staunch supporter of Cruz and campaigned extensively with him prior to the state’s caucuses.
“I charged him with this some time after he suspended his campaign after the Indiana primary,” King told the Washington Examiner on the convention floor on Monday. “We sat down and had dinner together and I said to him, ‘Ted, you need to give a speech in Cleveland, and it needs to be a speech that is big and resounding and lays out priority of principles and ideals similar to Ronald Reagan’s speech in 1976 — the one that set the stage for Reagan to enter us into the presidency and a subsequent election.’ That’s what I hope Cruz can do.”
Cruz surprised many two weeks ago when he met with his former rival after a D.C., meeting with congressional Republicans. Soon after the meeting, the GOP primary contest runner-up announced that Trump had asked him to speak at the convention but did not request or receive an endorsement.
Some still wonder what really happened in that meeting, leading to increased speculation about what Cruz’s message will be on Wednesday — one of party unity or one focused on the future, with 2020 a real possibility.
“I don’t know what he’s going to do in that regard,” said former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a fervent Cruz supporter, when asked about pressures on him to endorse . “They all sat down together and I don’t know what happened … I’m curious.”
“I expect to hear the kind of vision for a better America that I’m used to hearing out of him that’s principle-based and applies it to the real world,” he said about his expectations for Wednesday night. “That’s what I expect.”
Many still believe that Cruz’s support could help Trump in conservative cricles. Cruz and fellow Sens. Mike Lee, and Ben Sasse continue to withhold for the GOP nominee, but other former 2016 rivals are still hopeful Cruz will come around.
“Hopefully he will realize how important it is to win this election,” Ben Carson told the Examiner Tuesday. “He has two little girls and he needs to be concerned about their future. I think he is a smart enough man to understand that if we get just one more progressive Supreme Court justice. It’s going to have a truly huge impact on his daughters.”
Cruz is set to speak Wednesday in primetime along with Eric Trump, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence.
