CLEVELAND — Ted Cruz could have done more than anyone on Wednesday night to unite the divided Republican Party by uttering a few simple words: Vote for Donald Trump.

Instead, he chose payback.


The man who’s made a career infuriating fellow Republicans on the Senate floor did the same thing on Wednesday night — on the floor of Quicken Loans Arena. Drowned out by cat calls and boos from the crowd, Cruz showed again that he has no compunction about being the lonely, unpopular naysayer. His stand won’t cause a government shutdown this time, but the chasm he refused to close could damage Trump’s bid for the presidency.

But Cruz, again in keeping with his time-tested m.o., chose purity over accommodation. On the biggest stage in politics, he was unwilling to promote a man who attacked his wife and his father as the two battled it out this spring.

“Don’t stay home in November,” Cruz told the raucous arena. “If you love our country and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak, and vote your conscience.”

The act of defiance promises to be a defining moment in Cruz’s political career. He antagonized millions of voters who made Trump the nominee — whether the New Yorker wins or loses, the political cost of that move could be very steep indeed.

“There was so much good feeling and unity at this convention for three days, and Ted Cruz just came in and cravenly threw it against a brick wall just so he could set himself up for 2020,” 33-year-old Texas delegate Shaun Ireland fumed afterward. The recriminations were immediate: Billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson turned Cruz away from his suite in the arena, two sources said.

But the non-endorsement allowed the Texan to avoid muddying his brand by endorsing a nominee whom conservatives are deeply skeptical of — and gave cover to those who share Cruz’s reluctance.

“Absolutely courageous. He did the brave, principled thing. Cruz did not stay on the sidelines and avoid the convention or compromise his principles,” said Amanda Carpenter, a former Cruz speechwriter. “He rose to the challenge and didn’t back down and gave hope to all of those Republicans who worry about Trump.”

Cruz’s non-endorsement made instant history, the culmination of an incredibly bitter primary battle that shows no signs of abating nearly three months later. While the Texas senator’s mere presence at the Republican convention seemed to indicate some level of approval for Trump, Cruz could bring himself to say Trump’s name just once, congratulating the New Yorker for officially sealing the nomination on Tuesday.

"I had to speak the truth," Cruz said in a brief interview afterward. "It's going to be an interesting couple of days. The chips will fall where they may."

The speech was suspenseful to the very end. Cruz seemed to be building up to an endorsement. His began with an anecdote about the child of a slain police officer in Dallas, transitioned into a series of attacks on Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama and came to a logical point at which Cruz would finally let bygones be bygones and come together in the name of party unity.

Only it never came. Loud boos broke out near the end of the speech when it became clear Cruz wasn’t going to endorse Trump. The New York delegation — Trump loyalists for sure — began chanting “We want Trump!”

Any veneer of party unity was lost in an instant. "Ted! Ted! Ted!” the Utah delegation chanted. “Trump! Trump! Trump!” Arizonans shot back.

Trump’s team actively tried to downplay the significance of the moment. The nominee ridiculed the speech on Twitter and his close aides characterized Cruz’s speech as pathetic.

“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!” Trump tweeted.

After the speech, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich insisted that Cruz’s vague November instructions were really telling voters to pull the lever for Trump.

“In this election, there is only one candidate who will uphold the Constitution,” Gingrich said.

Crowds boos Ted Cruz as he declines to endorse Donald Trump

But the bulk of the delegates knew better — as did Cruz supporters. Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative activist and prominent Cruz backer, said the word “conscience” is a “code word” for preserving the ability not to vote for Trump. He had to help escort Heidi Cruz from the arena as the mood soured during Cruz’s speech.

Cruz told Trump directly this week that he would not give an endorsement, said Cruz strategist Jason Johnson.

"It is a fact that Cruz spoke, by phone, to Trump two days ago and told him his speech would not include an ‘endorsement,’ rather would lay out principles we can all unite around. This was not a surprise,” Johnson said. He added that it was Trump who called up Cruz.

Heads-up or no, Cruz effectively split the GOP in two after the Trump campaign and GOP leaders spent the week here trying to present a united front.

“Everybody pledged that they were going to support the nominee. It’s too bad he didn’t,” said Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska.

But others found hope that Cruz yet again refused to compromise. Larry Schug, a North Carolina delegate, said that Cruz “should be president.”

“If [Trump] had done to your wife what he had done to Heidi. If he had done to your father what he did to Ted’s father,” Schug said, referring to Trump’s personal attacks on Cruz’s family, “how could you support him?”

Drew Ryun, a GOP operative who helped run one of the super PACs supporting Cruz, said he wasn’t sure how Cruz’s stand would affect his future prospects, but said that, either way, “this defines him.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of Ted than tonight. That was a hostile environment he walked into, and he stood his ground.”

While Ryun suggested the hullabaloo wouldn’t hurt Trump, he said, “I’m glad [Cruz] got booed at the end.”

Cruz’s diss was all the more stark because other Trump rivals from the primary campaign had just praised him. Appearing via video, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) praised Trump’s national security acumen, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker chided those still refusing to back Trump.

“A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary Clinton,” Walker said.

A few minutes later, Cruz appeared before a rapt audience that hung on his every word as the Texas senator spoke of American values, freedom and family. But once Cruz bypassed an endorsement of Trump, the crowd didn’t want to hear it, booing over his retelling of his father’s flight from oppression in Cuba with $100 sewn into his clothes.

At the end of his speech, Cruz seemed to pause to soak it all in: Trump supporters berating him, his own backers countering with pro-Cruz chants. He’d reached the end of his prepared remarks, so the senator ad-libbed one last line.

“We will defend freedom and be faithful to the Constitution,” Cruz said. “We will unite the party. We will unite the country.”

Glenn Thrush, Katie Glueck, Eli Stokols, Kenneth Vogel, Matt Nussbaum and Ben Schreckinger contributed to this report. Everett reported from Washington.