With a “heavy heart,” Ted Cruz dropped out of the Republican presidential race Tuesday, a stunning fall for a candidate who seemed on the upswing just weeks ago after beating Donald Trump in the Wisconsin primary.
Cruz quickly emerged as the face of the Tea Party after his election to the Senate from Texas in 2012. The fast track to leadership in Washington that he was denied working on the inside of George W. Bush’s team he gained as a conservative outsider.
Despised by many Republicans in Washington, Cruz connected with many rank-and-file conservatives who were fed up with the party establishment and felt no one was really trying to fight liberals like President Barack Obama.
Cruz led the fight to defund Obamacare, which precipitated a government shutdown in 2013. Many Republicans criticized Cruz’s move as self-aggrandizing and ineffectual. Some even blamed Cruz for the narrow Republican loss in the Virginia gubernatorial race.
But among many conservative activists throughout the country, Cruz was the only man in Washington who would dare to keep the GOP’s promises to fight Obama.
It was no surprise that a Ronald Reagan-quoting conservative with Cruz’s ambition but not obvious desire to build the bridges necessary for a long Senate career would seek higher office. So when Cruz declared his candidacy last year at the Jerry Falwell-founded evangelical college Liberty University.
Cruz had a major advantage over other conservatives running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He could claim some level of foreign policy expertise unlike Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He didn’t have to make the compromises of exercising executive power like Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
The Texas senator could always take the majority side among conservatives on issues like immigration, unlike Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, or to a lesser extent foreign policy, ulike Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Cruz could always tell conservatives what they wanted to hear. He was the three-legged stool economic, social and national security conservative. Meanwhile, establishment Republican candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were always at an inherent disadvantage given the party’s mood.
Most of all, Barack Obama proved that a freshman senator who was in touch with his party should strike while the iron is hot rather than waiting for an uncertain re-election before seeking the White House.
But Cruz had to negotiate the sudden disagreements on the right over trade, immigration, foreign policy and civil liberties, sometimes appearing to take multiple sides, which hurt his reputation as a conviction politician.
Cruz also had a nastier than expected feud with Rubio, who straddled the supposed establishment and conservative lanes and emerged as an obstacle to his fellow freshman senator’s presidential aspirations.
The biggest development that hurt Cruz was that Trump outdid him as an outsider and voice for the GOP rank-and-file’s anger at their party’s governing class.
Blasted as “Lyin’ Ted,” Cruz’s disciplined, data-driven campaign at first seemed well suited to trump Trump. Cruz could most convincingly argue that Trump wasn’t the most conservative candidate running. He gobbled up delegates at state and local GOP conventions that the billionaire’s disorganized campaign was leaving on the table.
But Trump succeeded in making Cruz, the man who called the sitting Senate Republican leader a “liar,” a party insider. One poll found that 62 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners now regarded the Texan as an establishment candidate.
Cruz did not do as well as expected in winning evangelical voters. He mostly lost the South. He sometimes won very conservative voters but not always. Trump was more consistent in turning out his unconventional coalition.
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell endorsed Trump, not Cruz. Cruz brought Carly Fiorina into Indiana. Trump countered with legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight.
While getting the establishment label, Cruz only got half-hearted establishment support. His endorsements were still few compared to many vanquished primary candidates. And they were often loaded with caveats about Cruz’s flaws, followed by pleas to come together to stop Trump.
Initially, Cruz embraced Trump. He refused to criticize him. He said the businessman was “terrific” and that he would refuse the establishment’s effort to force a “cage match” between the two of them.
Many observers believe Cruz hoped Trump would fizzle out and he could pick up the real estate developer’s supporters. When that didn’t happen, the cordial relations between Trump and Cruz deteriorated.
Eventually, Cruz began launching pointed attacks on Trump. Trump, for his part, went so far as to retweet an unflattering image of Cruz’s wife and repeated a tabloid story about the senator’s father being with John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
“I’m going to do something I haven’t done for the entire campaign, for those of you who have traveled with me all across the country — I’m going to tell you what I really think about Donald Trump,” Cruz said earlier in the day of the Indiana primary. But that raises questions about why he didn’t say what he really thought before.
Cruz was unable to stop Trump through the primary process. Once he was mathematically eliminated from winning through the primaries, Cruz’s process argument about keeping Trump from winning 1,237 delegates was less attractive than Trump saying he would win delegates democratically.
We were treated to the odd spectacle of Trump accusing Cruz of voter disenfranchisement at caucuses and conventions. Then Trump tore through seven straight primaries, winning them all by landslides, wiping out Cruz’s delegate gains. The Indiana primary was the last straw.
Cruz told voters in Indiana Tuesday night that he wanted to continue his fight for the nomination as long as there was a realistic path. But he conceded, “Tonight, I am sorry to say, it appears that path has been foreclosed … the voters chose another path.”
That path was following one of the few candidates who could claim to be more of an insurgent than Cruz.
