Sen. Ted Cruz. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images elections Cruz: 'I hope to run again' for president

Sen. Ted Cruz, the runner-up to Donald Trump in the bruising 2016 Republican presidential primary, revealed Thursday that he wants to someday mount another White House campaign.

“Look, I hope to run again,” the Texas lawmaker told The Christian Science Monitor . “We came very, very close in 2016. And it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life."


Cruz sparred viciously with Trump during the GOP’s nominating contest. Trump memorably threatened and shared online an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife, and promulgated an unfounded conspiracy theory linking Cruz’s father to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Cruz achieved the second-most delegates at the party’s July 2016 convention in Cleveland, where a contingent of his supporters attempted to derail Trump’s nomination and disrupted the proceedings. Cruz also declined to endorse Trump in a prime-time address, instead imploring Republicans to “vote your conscience.” The speech was met with a chorus of boos from the convention floor.

But Cruz two months later announced he would be voting for Trump in the general election against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and has emerged in the three years since as a staunch conservative ally of the president's in Congress.

Cruz won reelection to the Senate in 2018, vanquishing former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke in a race that garnered significant national attention and vaulted O’Rourke into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

Cruz’s relatively narrow victory exacerbated fears among Republicans that the state could transform into a potential battleground in the upcoming election cycle, both in the presidential competition and in GOP Sen. John Cornyn's bid for reelection to a fourth term.

“Texas is going to be hotly contested in 2020,” Cruz said on Thursday. “I believe the president will win Texas. I think it will be closer than last time.”

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