Has heavyweight primary challenger Ted Cruz, R-Texas, written off the possibility of a Donald Trump victory? And if so, has he written off the Republican Party as well for 2020? Or is a hacker having a bit of mischief?
Those questions were raised by an article Cruz promoted on social media Sunday that his spokeswoman wrote to the Washington Examiner to disavow. The tweet on his official Twitter account, repeating the title from a Conservative Review article, read, “Why conservatives will need a new party if/when Hillary wins.”
The article, by Daniel Horowitz, argued that the Republicans ought to go the way of the Whigs, the party that they replaced in 1860 to become part of America’s de facto two-party system.
Horowitz observed that in the event of a Clinton election, many Republicans are lining up to lend bipartisan cover to her agenda. He argued that they needed to be replaced with a more hardcore conservative opposition party — an opposition very much in the mold of Cruz’s own combustible tenure in the Senate.
Cruz’s boosting of the article only fueled further speculation about what he plans in 2020 before the tweet was apruptly deleted a few hours later.
“That story was not tweeted by Sen. Cruz or an authorized handler of the account. It has been pulled down and we have reached out to Twitter to determine the source,” explained Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier to the Examiner after an earlier version of this story was published.
Her boss and Trump’s chief primary opponent refused to endorse the party’s nominee in July, telling folks instead to “vote your conscience” and provoking a chorus of boos from Trump supporters at the Cleveland Republican National Convention.
Then, near the end of September, Cruz unexpectedly reversed course and endorsed Trump. He was photographed working a phone bank trying to get out the vote for the GOP nominee.
Many political observers argued that Cruz endorsed Trump because of unexpectedly harsh blowback from his own supporters. If he wanted their support for re-election to the Senate or in a future presidential bid, many supporters reportedly told Cruz, he’d have to show that he could be a team player.
This story has been updated.
