Carly Fiorina endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Wednesday, supplying his campaign with a high-profile supporter and an eager critic of Donald J. Trump.
Fiorina, the former presidential candidate and Hewlett-Packard chief executive, took to the role quickly, appearing as a surprise guest at Cruz’s morning rally.
“Some people are now saying: ‘Well, Donald Trump wouldn’t be so bad. OK, maybe he’s a liberal, maybe he’s a fraud, but at least he’s a deal-maker,’ ” Fiorina told a crowd of about 200 people. “The truth is that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two sides of the same coin. They aren’t going to reform the system. They are the system.”
For Cruz, who has increasingly moved to frame the primary season as a two-man race between him and Trump, the endorsement provided a crucial boost.
“Our message today is one of unity,” he said after Fiorina — who suspended her campaign after the New Hampshire primary in February — spent several minutes praising him.
He surmised that, as news of the endorsement spread, “we just heard a whole bunch of Democratic activists and Hillary supporters go, ‘Whoa, what was that?’ ”
Fiorina’s history as a vocal critic of both Clinton and Trump leaves her well-positioned to be a major Cruz surrogate. Few candidates have been as successful as Fiorina in knocking Trump off balance during debates.
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