Cruz, who will be speaking Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, is plotting his strategy for the fall campaign and beyond. | AP Photo Ted Cruz at a crossroads Alienating fellow GOP senators came back to haunt him in the campaign. Now he needs to decide what kind of senator he wants to be.

CLEVELAND — Relaxed and low-key aren’t words typically associated with Ted Cruz. But that’s precisely how his colleagues describe the Texas senator since he returned to the Senate after losing to Donald Trump this spring.

As he prepares to address the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Wednesday night, Cruz is at a crossroads. Being the bomb-throwing pariah of the Senate earned him a loyal following among conservatives suspicious of any compromise with Democrats. But it didn’t get him the nomination, and it stopped the GOP establishment from rallying around Cruz when he emerged as the only way to keep Trump from the nomination.


Now, the always-calculating Cruz is plotting his strategy for the fall campaign and beyond. The most pressing question is whether the freshman senator will endorse Trump, who linked his father to JFK’s assassination and mercilessly branded him “Lyin’ Ted.” Beyond that, the contrarian Texan needs to decide what kind of senator he wants to be, as he approaches a 2018 reelection campaign and a likely second run for the White House in 2020 if Trump loses.

“He’s probably trying to reassess exactly how he’s going to reengage in the Senate. I think he’s been constructive,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Cruz’s colleague from Texas.

“He seems awfully quiet” lately, said Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). “I’m guessing he’s taking a deep breath.”

Cruz’s reserved demeanor is, of course, the opposite of his deportment as he rose to prominence: taking on fellow Republicans he viewed as sellouts and taking damn-the-torpedoes stands on conservative principle regardless of the political fallout or animosity he engendered.

These days, though, a mellower Cruz is on display. Usually happy to mix it up with reporters in the halls of Congress, he now walks briskly past them and declines to engage, except on safe topics such as a memorial service for Dallas police officers and what it was like to fly on Air Force One with President Barack Obama. (“It beats the middle seat of an exit row,” Cruz quipped.)

He’s also laying off fellow Republicans like his long-running rival, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, or occasional critic, Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who’s knocked the Texan’s legislative techniques in the past.

Asked about Cruz’s deportment of late, Ayotte said there’s been “nothing unusual” from him; his favorite topic of conversation with senators is his time on the presidential trail. “He’s been having good discussions with his colleagues at lunch and in the cloakroom.”

In Cleveland this week, Cruz is declining appearances before early-state or swing-state delegates. Instead, he’s spending his time with the Texas contingent, hosting a thank-you event Wednesday afternoon and speaking at a breakfast Thursday morning.

One theory of the case from GOP senators is that Cruz discovered that he really could have used their help once the primary narrowed to him and Trump. Instead, the animus ran so high that many Republicans in Congress stayed neutral at crunch time rather than back Cruz. Just three of Cruz’s colleagues endorsed him, and only Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) did so early enough in the campaign to leave a mark.

“He may have realized that nobody here really supported him except for Mike Lee. He could be licking his wounds,” said one Republican senator.

But people close to Cruz insist that he's the same unapologetic voice of the right, and that he's merely laying low for his next opportunity. That may present itself with a Sept. 30 deadline to keep the government funded, or on legislation to raise the debt ceiling next year. Those leverage points have allowed Cruz to mount stands that included defunding Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and forcing some of his colleagues to vote to raise the debt ceiling by requiring 60 votes in 2014.

In the absence of those opportunities, Cruz’s focus in the Senate has been on the type of red meat that will make good convention fodder for Republicans: attacking sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants and chairing a hearing concentrating on the Obama administration’s “willful blindness” toward Islamic terrorism. He’s also fought a proposal being pushed by some Republicans to require women to register for the draft.

Cruz has yet to fully throw himself into the pitched battle by Republicans to keep Senate control, spending most of his energy on long-shot Colorado GOP candidate Darryl Glenn rather than aiding the defense of vulnerable incumbents.

As for the convention speech and campaign, Cruz told POLITICO last week that he’s planning to articulate his vision for a conservative future for the GOP. Any Trump endorsement is still likely to wait.

“In this election I am where a great many voters are, which is that I am listening and watching and coming to a decision,” Cruz told Glenn Thrush’s “Off Message” podcast. “What I’m looking forward to is changing the course this country is on. I don’t know if that happens in this election cycle or not,” he added.

Some Trump loyalists are pushing Cruz to offer an explicit endorsement, rather than leave Republican convention attendees guessing what Cruz really thinks about Trump.

“It’s good that he’s gonna speak at the convention,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said last week. “There were some harsh things said [in the primary]. And you could say the same for Reagan and Ford in ‘76 or even Reagan and Bush in ‘80. So I think you move beyond this.”

The question Republicans are asking themselves is: Can Cruz bring the right on board to unify the party at the convention without endorsing Trump?

“No,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). “What’s the objective? The objective’s to beat the Democrat.”

“All of our people need to come on board,” added Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a big Trump booster. “I know there’s some hard feelings. But on issue after issue after issue, Trump is right where the party is.”

Burgess Everett reported from Washington, and Seung Min Kim from Cleveland.

