Ted Cruz is a successful politician who rose from obscurity to score an upset win for the U.S. Senate. He became one of the best known constitutional conservatives in the country and set himself up for a 2016 presidential run, even though Democrats and moderate Republicans detested him.
But Cruz, Texas' junior senator, has made major miscalculations involving Donald Trump. He underestimated the New York businessman and reality television star as a presidential contender. Then he misread his own popularity with the GOP base by not immediately endorsing the victorious Trump. Afterward he became too cozy with the president, clearly an effort to inherit Trump's formidable political base.
Last week Trump burned Cruz -- again.
Cruz pushed a controversial proposal to appoint a special commission to examine unfounded allegations of voter fraud in November's elections, a move that fueled the misguided belief among Trump supporters that former Vice President Joe Biden's victory over the incumbent resulted from voter fraud in several battleground states.
On Jan. 6, just before Congress was to certify the 2020 presidential election results, Trump told participants at a Washington rally to march on the Capitol. They did, and a mob stormed the Hill. Rioters entered the Senate chamber searching for Vice President Mike Pence and wreaking havoc. The ordeal resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol police officer.
Cruz's last great act for Trump, his rival turned ally, backfired.
Trump was roundly denounced for rhetoric that many believe incited the riot and he could face another impeachment trial. Cruz was pilloried for helping push Trump's baseless fraud allegations and trying to obstruct the certification of Biden's victory amid a powder keg of a situation.
It's widely speculated that Cruz will run for president in 2024, hoping to build on his 2016 candidacy, when he was the Republican runner-up to Trump. He can run for president and seek reelection at the same time, thanks to what's known as the LBJ provision in Texas.
Whether he's running for the White House or reelection, the events of last week will make it hard for Cruz to sell himself to a general election audience that includes Democrats, soft Republicans and independents.
Trump has signaled that he'll try to retake the White House in four years, which would complicate the candidacies of Cruz and other Republicans.
Even if Trump doesn't run, could Cruz still be in a position to seriously challenge for the GOP nomination? It's too early to tell. Four years seems like an eternity in politics, but, at the least, Cruz has to repair the damage done by last week's controversies and rethink his approach to dealing with Trump.
Perhaps it's his presidential race loss or the way his supporters turned on him at the convention that's caused Cruz to view being Trump's best bud as a political necessity.
What's clear is that the specter of Trump has loomed over Cruz for years.
Late in 2015 Cruz trailed Trump in the GOP race for president but figured he would blow past the bombastic New Yorker when the primary voting started.
I wondered why Cruz was flattering Trump instead of trying to pummel the first-time candidate before he ran away from the field. He even invited Trump to join him on the stump.
"Look, Donald Trump is not going to get the nomination," Cruz told me in New Hampshire. "Ben Carson is not going to get the nomination."
He was wrong about Trump.
After Cruz scored an impressive victory in Iowa, Trump staged a ferocious run for the nomination, steamrolling past the large field and reshaping Republican politics.
Cruz shifted gears, calling Trump "utterly amoral" and a "pathological liar." For his part, Trump dubbed the senator "Lyin' Ted."
"He holds the Bible high and then starts lying," Trump often said.
Trump also insulted Cruz's wife, Heidi, by retweeting an unflattering photo of her. Trump the candidate peddled tabloid smut that the Cruz's father, Carrollton, Texas, minister Rafael Cruz, was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
At the GOP convention, and perhaps understandably so, Cruz made another political misstep. During his prime-time speech, he told delegates to vote their conscience and he refused to endorse Trump. Angry delegates booed him off the stage.
The next morning Texas delegates excoriated him at a breakfast event. And he subsequently took a hit in the polls, a trend he managed to reverse before his 2018 reelection bid. Weeks before the general election, and after he released a list of conservative leaders he would consider for the Supreme Court, Cruz gave Trump his backing.
What followed was a strong bond between Trump and Cruz. Their families met for dinner and Cruz rarely criticized the president, telling reporters that he wasn't going to respond to every Trump tweet.
Trump warmed to Cruz.
In 2018 the president held a rally for Cruz in Texas, which curiously occurred before the incumbent senator had a setback in the polls for his reelection bid against former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of El Paso. Cruz, summoning the campaign skills that made him a darling of the tea party movement, squeaked out a victory over O'Rourke.
Since then Trump has considered the senator for a Supreme Court appointment, and tapped Cruz to argue before the high court a dubious lawsuit to challenge the presidential election results in several battleground states. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton brought that controversial case, which the court refused to hear.
Cruz's involvement in Trump's follies didn't stop there, as last week the nation and the world were rocked by the tumult and violence. Conservative columnist George Will accused Cruz of sedition and said he'll bear a "scarlet S" for the rest of his career.
As Cruz moves forward, he should consider that he built his political base before Trump burst on the political scene. Though he's always been a polarizing figure, constitutional and Christian conservatives have powered Cruz's success. He didn't need to take extraordinary steps to woo Trump loyalists to improve his popularity with GOP base voters.
Now he's linked to the president in the worst way, and history won't reflect kindly on his role.
Gromer Jeffers Jr. is a political writer for The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.