Ted Cruz’s run for president is over, but this weekend, his operatives will fight on, heading to a pair of state conventions to push the campaign's preferred delegates to the Republican National Convention.

According to a GOP source familiar with the Cruz campaign’s decision, staff will be on the ground in North Carolina and South Carolina, where 56 delegates will be selected. Some will even fan out next week when a dozen more states — including Cruz’s home state of Texas — pick their national delegates. It’s an effort, two Cruz sources told POLITICO, to pack the convention full of conservatives who can stand up to any attempt by Donald Trump to weaken conservative planks of the GOP platform or rework the rules that govern the presidential nomination process.


“It’s still important that we have a conservative convention … I think we would be doing Ted Cruz a disservice if we gave up that fight,” said Rob Uithoven, who helmed Cruz’s operation in western states. “It’ll be even more difficult now with the campaign suspended to try to get our [delegates] elected.”

Uithoven sent a letter Wednesday to the Cruz leadership teams in each of the western states he oversaw urging the delegates he helped elect to attend the national convention rather than cede the floor to Trump.

It’s not, however, about trying to take the nomination from Trump -- and there won’t even be Cruz-specific delegates slates, according to one of the campaign sources. “It’s more about conservative/non-establishment folks having a voice in the upcoming rules and platform,” said the source, “especially since Trump has said he wants to change the platform.”

But while Cruz has given up on being the party’s nominee, his campaign’s continued efforts represent a desire to exert influence over the party — both in the 2016 election, and in elections to come.

“He’s very much, I think, the leader of the conservative movement in this country,” said Uithoven. “There’s not a single other person who’s better positioned to lead the conservative movement – and continue to lead the conservative movement – in this country than Ted Cruz.”

It’s unlikely to be a sustained effort — staffers are only on the payroll until the middle of the month — but the post-mortem moves of Cruz’s 2016 campaign offer a first window into the candidate’s long-term thinking.

Cruz is looking to expand his leverage over aspects of the convention in a way that could shape the party for years – and perhaps jolt it away from the insiders that have dominated it for decades. His delegate work comes as aides are already musing about the prospect of a Cruz presidential bid in 2020, and any success in shaping the nomination process for the future could be significant.

Convention veterans and Cruz campaign allies noted that there are ample opportunities for Cruz to exert influence over the convention proceedings. He has already succeeded in stacking most state delegations with allies, initially part of a strategy to prevail if the convention became a multi-ballot grudge match against Donald Trump. Even in states where Trump won the popular primary votes – Virginia, Missouri, Arizona, South Carolina and more – Cruz had rammed through slates of loyal delegates who appeared poised to break from Trump at a contested convention.

Now, those delegates may have a subtler, but equally significant role to play in shaping the procedures that select the GOP nominee in future cycles. The most prominent example would be the Convention Rules Committee, a 112-member panel of delegates, where Cruz has already installed a slew of allies – most notably, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a former Supreme Court clerk. A Lee aide declined to indicate whether the senator intended to participate in the convention despite Cruz’s decision to drop out.

The panel has featured perennial fights over whether Republican primary contests should be closed to Democratic or independent voters. And although moves to do so have generally failed, they may find new currency in a panel controlled by Cruz, popular with the GOP activist base. Similarly, the rules committee has long debated the ability of states to hold winner-take-all primaries, granting all of their delegates to a candidate who wins a plurality of votes. And of course, the primary calendar itself is a regular source of debate – from whether Iowa and New Hampshire should continue to drive the early part of the nomination process to the introduction of regional primaries.

Guy Short, a Cruz supporter and member of the rules panel from Colorado, said he’s eyeing a slew of changes, though he emphasized they were not being directed by Cruz’s campaign team. Among them: penalizing states that allow Democrats and independents vote in Republican primaries by cutting their delegate totals and inserting a “conscience clause” to let delegates opt out of supporting candidates they’re bound to vote for over policy disagreements.

Cruz may also seek to influence the Platform Committee, which is the guardian of the GOP base’s policy vision and could be targeted by Trump’s forces, who are less rigid on social issues. Here, Short, a six-time convention delegate, said he intends to stand in Trump’s way – and the Cruz source indicated that its effort is primarily focused on preventing Trump from rolling back the platform’s conservative planks.

“I’ve heard concerns from fellow conservatives about the Trump campaign trying to weaken the pro-life plank,” Short said. “There’s a concern about weakening of the pro-marriage, traditional marriage … It’ll be interesting to see what other stuff will come up in terms of trade, which has not been at the top of previous conventions. I think now that we have a presumptive nominee, platform might be more contentious than if we were going to a contested convention.”

Ryan Williams, a longtime staffer to Mitt Romney, noted that the party’s presumptive nominee typically controls the national convention committees – as Romney did in 2012. But Trump, he noted, isn’t as organized for the convention as Romney -- or even Cruz, and that could break the historical pattern. “I just don’t think the Trump campaign has an apparatus,” he said. “I don’t think the Trump campaign’s going to have the bandwidth to monitor the actions of those committees.”

Added Short, a six-time convention delegate, “I don’t think you’re going to have a presumptive nominee that’s got as much control over these committees as they have in the past.”

Steve Munisteri, the former chairman of the Texas Republican Party, said he anticipated that the Cruz campaign would cede its delegate fights to Trump, now that the nomination battle is over, even in Cruz’s home state of Texas, which holds a convention to select 155 delegates next week.

“As a practical matter, what usually happens is the presumptive nominee’s team comes in and tells people what they want,” he said. But that prospect is now unclear. Munisteri predicted last week – prior to Cruz’s decision to quit the contest – that the senator would appoint loyalists to all 155 delegate slots, an enormous haul that would cement his edge over Trump in the delegate hunt.

Even if Cruz’s delegates fall short of controlling the convention in July, they’re almost certain to combine with Trump’s backers to form a majority of the convention attendees. In that scenario, the convention’s decision-making bodies would be controlled by two outsider candidates with little loyalty to the established procedures of previous conventions. Trump, in particular, has complained about a “rigged” presidential nomination process and could pursue substantive changes to the rules. Trump delegate advisors didn’t respond to requests for comment but have noted previously that a convention controlled by Trump and Cruz could implement dramatic procedural changes.

Two RNC members who endorsed Cruz said they haven’t considered specific rules changes they’d like to pursue. Ellen Barrosse, Delaware’s RNC committeewoman, said she intends to be on the Convention Rules Committee but has “no idea” whether Cruz’s team can have an impact there. “I have long been opposed to making any substantial rules changes,” she said.

Melody Potter, West Virginia’s RNC committeewoman, said she hopes to see changes to simplify the delegate process so voters can understand it. She intends to be on the Platform Committee and defend its conservative stances on education, energy, abortion and same-sex marriage.

In all likelihood, Trump will take control of the public portions of the convention. The decision by the Republican National Committee to anoint him as presumptive nominee – followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s exit on Wednesday – removes any obstacles to the argument that he shouldn’t set the convention agenda, dictating the primetime speakers, the positioning of delegates in the arena and the stagecraft of the event – which he’s indicated that he’d like to spice up.

One veteran RNC member told POLITICO that he expects the convention to continue to be “the Trump show” – with a limited opportunity for Cruz to try to preserve the conservative party platform.

“It’ll be Trump’s convention in the end,” said the RNC member, who requested anonymity. “He won it fair and square. It’s going to be his show.”

Uithoven said the Cruz effort isn’t about a potential future presidential bid.

“I can understand people may say that,” he said. “This is about 2016. It’s about 2017 and ‘18. This is about the actions that we can take, right now, today.

“The movement continues,” he said, and I think the best work that we can do on behalf of who I believe is the conservative leader in this country is to get to Cleveland.”