Ted Cruz plots a 2024 bid even as he waits on Trump

LONDONDERRY, New Hampshire — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) shook hands and posed for pictures with the crowd for an hour, then grabbed a stool at the bar at American Legion Post 27 and joined everyone for a beer.

This is what running for president looks like in New Hampshire, the host of the second nominating contest and the first traditional primary on the Republican Party’s quadrennial nominating calendar. And Cruz, the runner-up for the GOP nod in 2016 (the last time the party did not field an incumbent), conceded he has not ruled out mounting a second campaign — even if former President Donald Trump enters the race.

But the senator also confirmed in a brief interview with the Washington Examiner Thursday evening he will make no decision about 2024 until he knows Trump’s plans. Any Republican mulling a White House bid who says otherwise (and at the very least, that includes former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) is, Cruz insists, being dishonest about his or her internal deliberations.

“There are a lot of candidates out there feeling their oats and boasting, ‘I’m running no matter what. I don’t care what Donald Trump says.’ Anyone who says that is lying. That’s an idiotic statement for someone to make who’s actually thinking about running,” Cruz said after headlining a rally for Karoline Leavitt, the Republican candidate for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, before a couple of hundred voters and activists.

“I don’t know what Trump’s going to decide — nobody does. Anybody who tells you they do is making things up,” the senator said. “The whole world will change depending on what Donald Trump decides. That’s true for every candidate. That’s true of every potential candidate.”

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Trump has given all indications he intends to run.

Even before the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s residence and private social club in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of a federal investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified documents since leaving the White House, he was toying with announcing a campaign before the midterm elections. Top Republicans were so concerned Trump might pull the trigger this month or next that they worked furiously to talk him out of it.

Beyond polling that shows Trump being a prohibitive favorite at the outset of any primary, it’s easy to understand why Cruz is hesitating on a 2024 bid despite the fact that he loves campaigning and desperately wants to run for president again. After all, Republicans have a history of nominating previous runners-up, as they did in 1980 with Ronald Reagan, 2008 with John McCain, and 2012 with Mitt Romney.

Despite Trump’s flaws and downsides, and despite the party losing the House, Senate, and White House on his watch, he remains an iconic Republican figure with a hold on the imagination of many grassroots conservatives. Cruz understands that.

But just in case he needed reminding: One of his bartenders at the American Legion, a hangout for military veterans, in this conservative corner of southern New Hampshire was sporting a “Trump 2024” T-shirt that seemed to loom like a shadow over the senator as he sipped his beer. Peter Duffy, 60, a Republican voter and volunteer for Leavitt’s campaign, illustrated the Trump factor another way.

“I love Ted Cruz,” he said after the senator delivered a rousing 20-minute speech for Leavitt, a former Trump administration official, that had the crowd cheering and laughing. “Ted Cruz is very intelligent. He is very sophisticated. He knows the law, first of all. He’s very pro-American. And I believe him — bottom line.” So, would Duffy like to see Cruz run for president again?

“I would like to see Ted Cruz [become] attorney general of the United States,” he said. Duffy’s preference against President Joe Biden, or whomever the Democrats nominate, is Trump. “Nobody can do it like he can do it. And I believe he will [run]. And I believe he will win, no doubt about it.”

If Cruz is undecided about running for president, he is not undecided about running.

The senator will run for reelection in Texas in 2024 if he does not seek to lead the Republican Party’s national ticket and has spent the past nearly two years preparing to field a $100 million campaign that makes both options available to him. Texas law allows Cruz to run for the Republican nomination for Senate and president simultaneously.

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As part of Cruz’s effort to seed a potential presidential bid, he is crisscrossing the country this fall campaigning for Republicans on the 2022 ballot, raising millions of dollars for the candidates he is supporting. The plan is to connect with voters in key battlegrounds and early primary states, such as New Hampshire, and create a network of allies in the House and Senate whose assistance could prove crucial in a crowded and competitive nominating contest.

But for now, Cruz waits on Trump.

“He was the last Republican president, and one of the prerogatives that comes with that is he gets to decide what he’s going to do, and then, everyone else will decide accordingly,” the senator said.