After publicly spurning Donald Trump from the stage of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ted Cruz said Friday that he would make good on his vow to support the Republican nominee and vote for Trump in November.
“After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump,” Cruz wrote in a Facebook post, in which he called Hillary Clinton a “wholly unacceptable” alternative.
It’s a move intended to quell the controversy that has surrounded Cruz’s decision to withhold his endorsement from Trump at the convention. His defiance there sparked blowback from several of his top financial backers, among others, who excoriated him both publicly and privately and charged that he had committed the unforgivable sin of boosting Clinton’s chances at the ballot box in November.
But if Cruz’s statement quiets public speculation about how he will position himself with respect to Trump, it has added new drama to some long-simmering tensions among his top political aides. According to multiple sources, the statement of support was a coup for Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe. Roe was alone among the senator’s top advisers in urging him to issue the Friday statement. (He had also urged Cruz to endorse Trump at the convention in July.) One source with knowledge of the situation characterized the debate over an endorsement as “Jeff versus the whole world.”
Roe’s argument was political: Cruz faces a reelection battle in 2018, and with rumors that other Texas lawmakers like Homeland Security Committee chairman Mike McCaul are mulling a primary challenge against him, he simply can’t afford to be blamed for contributing to a GOP defeat in the event Trump loses narrowly. Neither Roe nor Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier responded to an immediate request for comment.
But Cruz’s decision has left many in his orbit crestfallen. Indeed, in response to the first reports that Cruz was preparing to indicate his support for Trump, the senator’s senior strategist, Jason Johnson — in a rather stunning public rebuke – posted the picture below to his Facebook account:
As Cruz positions himself to run for reelection in 2018 and for president in 2020, the looming question now is whether he can keep together a team bitterly divided. Two Cruz aides, communications director Jason Miller and Kellyanne Conway, who was executive director of a handful of super PACs supporting his candidacy, have already left him for the Trump campaign. If Trump succeeds in tearing apart his remaining team, it will perhaps be his final primary victory.