Updated at 10:30 p.m. from Cruz's meeting with The News' editorial board.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz made his case Thursday for an endorsement from The Dallas Morning News' editorial board, a prize that has eluded him the other five times he's appeared on ballots in Texas.

"It's fair to say this editorial board and I have not had the best relations," he said. "I do think that this board has believed a caricature that is less than accurate."

Cruz pitched himself as a conservative who cares about Texans, avoids pettiness and is far more pragmatic than his reputation.

He faced pointed questions about his relatively scant list of bipartisan achievement and what responsibility he bears to speak out against President Donald Trump if, as he says, he has Trump's ear and credibility with conservatives and moderates alike.

"Some Republicans are willing to defend the indefensible, and I'm not going to do that," Cruz said. But neither does he want to get sucked into the maelstrom of near-daily controversies emanating from the White House.

"At times national reporters seem to think Stormy Daniels is the most important person on the face of the planet," he said, referring to the porn actress who accused Trump of a sexual liaison while the first lady was home with their infant son. "I think Texans are much more interested in do they have a job. What kind of future do their kids have?"

To demands that he provide "running color commentary on the president and criticize everything he says," he says: "I don't think that's beneficial for Texas."

Thursday's meeting overlapped with the live CNN town hall event with Rep. Beto O'Rourke, in McAllen. O'Rourke met last week with The News' editorial board. The senator initially declined an invitation but agreed on short notice to come Thursday afternoon, after a campaign stop in Dallas.

The conversation lasted an hour and 45 minutes.

Much of it focused on the tone of American politics and the responsibility Cruz does or doesn't bear for polarization and rancor, and for the behavior of his ally in the Oval Office.

"This is a bitterly divided time in our country. There is an enormous amount of anger. ... We're seeing it spill out in ugly ways," he said, emphasizing that in his view, the biggest problem is "the boiling rage" on the left, stemming from Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton.

Still, he readily condemned the neo-Nazi demonstration last year in Charlottesville, Va., chalking it up to "a handful of racist kooks. That is an extreme fringe, and it's not representative of the country. And I think Nazis are grotesquely evil, racist bigots and idiots. I think the Klan are morons."

Cruz, a successful appellate lawyer before winning his Senate seat in 2012, brought a litigator's toolkit to the endorsement interview, pitching himself and also poking at his rival.

"On economic issues, on foreign policy, his agenda is quite extreme. It's more extreme than this board has typically been willing to agree with," he said.

On climate change, for instance he accused O'Rourke of "zealotry against the energy industry." Cruz himself disputes the scientific consensus that manmade factors have caused dangerous climate change, blaming that on "climate alarmists" and arguing that Democrats are eager to embrace findings that support an agenda of higher taxes and more regulation.

On immigration, he cast O'Rourke as an extremist, noting that he would decriminalize crossing into the United States without authorization.

"That's the very essence of open borders," Cruz said.

1 / 3U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, running against Congressman Beto OâRourke in the Texas U.S. Senate race, talks with The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News)(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, running against Congressman Beto OâRourke in the Texas U.S. Senate race, talks with The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News)(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3Sporting cowboy boots U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, running against Congressman Beto OÃRourke in the Texas U.S. Senate race, talks with The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News)(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

Cruz reiterated his own rejection of citizenship for anyone who entered the country illegally, including "Dreamers"-young immigrants brought into the country as children.

He distanced himself from Trump's "zero tolerance" policy of pressing criminal charges against everyone caught entering the country illegally. That led to a family separation crisis last summer. But he rejected Democrats' approach, arguing instead for processing cases quickly enough to keep families together until deportation.

"Everyone should agree that families shouldn't be separated," he said.

Asked about his reputation for avoiding compromise, Cruz invoked Ronald Reagan's adage that acceptable compromise involves taking half a loaf and then going back for the rest.

"I'm not interested in a compromise that makes the problem worse," he said.

The Republican tax cut enacted last year was, in his view, a compromise — a "step in the right direction" but not enough. And he touted his role in prodding fellow Republicans to use that measure as a vehicle to repeal the individual mandate in Obamacare — the requirement to have health insurance or face a tax penalty.

"Repealing the individual mandate was the right thing to do," he said, recalling the reluctance of many fellow Republicans who argued they had already tried to defang Obamacare and didn't want to bog down the tax bill with that fight.

Cruz acknowledged his reputation as an irritant to Senate GOP leaders, particularly early in his term when Barack Obama was president.

"I believed we could do a more vigorous job resisting the policies he was pushing. I viewed my job as leading the loyal opposition," Cruz said. "I do think one of the reasons that President Trump was elected was that American people were frustrated with Washington and frustrated that Republicans had not done more to resist bad policies."

His role transformed with Trump's election, he said, because that brought an opportunity to cut taxes, roll back regulations and install conservative judges.

"I recognize that my first several years in the Senate there were caricatures of me as a wild-eyed bomb thrower." Those, he said, were never accurate, adding that he didn't run for the Senate "simply to be a gadfly. It was to accomplish victories for the people of Texas."

O-for-5

Not counting next month, Cruz has faced Texas voters five times, each time without The News' recommendation.

In February, The News endorsed Cruz's little-known opponent in the GOP primary, Houston energy lawyer Stefano di Stefano.

"Cruz's elbows have been so sharp and his disdain for deal-making so pronounced, that he's often stymied his own party's agenda," the editorial read, citing his role in the 16-day government shutdown in fall 2013.

In February 2016, ahead of the state's GOP presidential primary, The News recommended Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

"As much as we'd like to see a Texan in the White House, we fear that Cruz's brand of politics is more about disruption than governing and threatens to take the Republican Party to a dark place," the editorial board wrote.

1 / 2Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, talked with The Dallas Morning News editorial board on Friday, Oct, 12, 2018, in Dallas. (Photo by Irwin Thompson) (Irwin Thompson / Staff Photographer) 2 / 2U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, running against Congressman Beto OâRourke in the Texas U.S. Senate race, talks with The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Ryan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News)(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

In 2012, The News endorsed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the GOP primary and runoff, writing of Cruz: "He's pugnacious, in-your-face, combative; that can feel good. But his appeal is based on an underlying anger that works only so far. Politics is about finding enough common ground with opponents to reach a solution, even if it is an impure one."

This was only Cruz's second editorial board meeting since the March primary, aides said. His first came Wednesday, the day after a televised debate in San Antonio, at the San Antonio Express-News.

The race remains competitive.

The most recent public polls show Cruz with a lead ranging from 4 percentage points to 9 percentage points. But a surge of voter registrations could bode well for O'Rourke, and the Democrats' record-setting fundraising -- $62 million, including $38 million just in the last three months -- means he has all he needs for advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.