Last week, I laid out the case that Vice President JD Vance isn’t necessarily the Republican frontrunner heading into 2028. But if Vance isn’t a slam dunk, who benefits? It’s way too early to predict the GOP’s next presidential nominee, but here’s a hot take you probably didn’t have on your bingo card: Ted Cruz is undervalued in this discussion.
Admittedly, there are good reasons why he isn’t generally seen as one of the leading contenders. He’s not a product of the Trump power structure like Vance; he isn’t fully aligned with America First ideology like Tucker Carlson; and he didn’t serve in the Trump Cabinet like Marco Rubio. In so many ways, he seems like a throwback to the pre-Trump GOP.
The thing, though, is that politics doesn’t always move in a linear direction. Times change. People and ideas that were out of style come back in. People and ideas that are in style go back out.
So why Cruz specifically? Start with the fact that he clearly wants to be president. He won’t have to be talked into running; he’s already making moves. “It is,” Vance said recently, “really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president.”
I concur. And the good news for Cruz is that a prerequisite for winning seems to be wanting it. Lots of otherwise-talented politicians lack this requisite fire in the belly (think Ted Kennedy, Fred Thompson and Jeb Bush, just to name a few) or believe the timing isn’t right for them in any given election year. If reports are to be believed, for example, Rubio is saying privately that he’s not plotting a run for the White House in 2028.
Let’s also remember that Cruz — not Rubio — was the last man standing in the 2016 primary. For a long time, there was a Republican tradition of turning to a second-place finisher in a future contest. Ronald Reagan came in second in 1976, then got the nomination in 1980. George H.W. Bush finished second in 1980, then got the nomination in 1988. It was the same story for Bob Dole and John McCain.
This bit of trivia obviously isn’t dispositive, and it doesn’t make Cruz the heir apparent — that distinction probably belongs to the sitting veep — but it does at least give Cruz an argument. And even if his second-place finish in 2016 carries no weight with voters 12 years later, it does mean that, unlike just about everyone else who could run, Cruz has put together a competent presidential bid before. In 2016, he won the Iowa caucuses, an accomplishment that — should he repeat it in 2028 — would vault him into the ranks of serious contenders. Moreover, unlike Vance, whose campaign experience is limited, Cruz has won a Senate race without Trump’s help. (At this point, I should disclose that my wife was an advisor to Cruz’s first Senate campaign.)
But if Cruz’s campaign record has been impressive, yet more impressive is that — despite opposing Trump and taking his objections all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention — he has managed to stay relevant during the past decade. He has written a number one New York Times bestselling book about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and has (per Politico) hosted “the most popular podcast by far of any sitting politician in the United States.” If Cruz’s politics seem antiquated, his PR and technological games seem cutting edge.
Along the way, his general image has evolved. Once considered an annoying gadfly — Republican senators’ “least favorite colleague,” as the Associated Press called him in 2016 — Cruz is now something more like an elder GOP statesman. Politico recently described him as a “Texas kingmaker” — one who is even capable of inspiring cross-partisan admiration. “I don’t agree with Ted on a litany of shit,” Javier Palomarez, a Democrat and president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Business Council, told Politico, “but at the end of the day, the guy’s always been a good partner to me and to the small business community.” A decade ago, Cruz was beloved by the conservative grassroots, but despised by Republican institutionalists. Today, he has mostly maintained his conservative bonafides, while the more moderate establishment leaders he once so vehemently repelled — see Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham — no longer run the show, opening the door for Cruz to assume the mantle of leadership.
Cruz’s biggest advantage, in the end, is his position at the intersection of the party’s ideological and philosophical splits. He is probably the most realistic version of what it would look like for the GOP to move on from Trump. He is in Trump world, but not of Trump world: He fits broadly under the MAGA umbrella and would therefore be acceptable to many of the voters who supported Trump all these years. But he is also more of a traditional Reagan conservative than, say, Vance or Carlson.
He has, for instance, remained a vehement defender of Israel (see his controversial podcast debate with Carlson) and could count on support from the still-strong faction of the party that is alarmed about growing anti-Zionism on the right. Israeli American mega-donor, casino magnate and Dallas Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson financially supported Cruz’s 2016 bid — with one source telling Buzzfeed that she “loves her some Ted Cruz” — and made a $1 million donation to a pro-Cruz super PAC in 2024.
Even with all these political attributes, I’m definitely not suggesting Cruz is the likeliest nominee. This outcome would still require Trump to continue spiraling downward — which is to say Cruz does not control his own destiny. Nor am I rooting for him, per se. But if I were at one of Adelson’s casinos, I’d put a few bucks on him. Every once in a while, one of these longshot bets pays off. Don’t sleep on Ted Cruz.
Matt K. Lewis is a Washington Sun Perspectives columnist.
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