Allies of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas have aggressively lobbied for a presidential ticket that would make Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida his running mate, but Rubio has rebuffed them, according to two people briefed on the closely guarded efforts.
While it is not clear how seriously Cruz has considered the idea, his campaign has at least conducted a poll of Republican primary voters to gauge their feelings on the prospect of the two senators joining forces.
The pairing has been pushed most fervently by a third Republican senator, Mike Lee of Utah, an ally of both men who became the first senator to endorse Cruz this month.
Forced to explore creative measures
Cruz’s examination of how Republican voters would respond to a ticket featuring the two first-term senators, which was confirmed by a person briefed on the campaign’s research, reflects his narrow path to the nomination.
With Donald Trump widening his delegate lead last week and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio remaining in the race, Cruz is being forced to explore creative measures to consolidate the support of Republicans opposed to Trump’s nomination.
But Rubio, who dropped out of the race after losing the Florida primary on March 15, has indicated that he would not agree to such a proposal and has not even determined whether he will endorse Cruz.
Party donors in Rubio's ear
Rubio wants to halt Trump’s march to the nomination and, despite recently campaigning against each other, is friendly with Cruz. But in making scores of thank-you calls to donors in recent days, Rubio has been discouraged by some party financiers from supporting Cruz, who is reviled by much of the party’s elite, according to a Republican strategist briefed on the calls, who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.
Aides to Cruz did not respond to questions regarding the poll that included Rubio as a possible running mate. The poll, Lee’s efforts and Rubio’s lack of interest were first reported by Politico.
Before dropping out of the presidential race, Rubio dismissed the idea of teaming up with Cruz, comparing it to a fanciful plot line that might be found on the television show “House of Cards.”
'I’m not going to be vice president'
Since ending his campaign, Rubio has been mostly quiet about his intentions.
“I’m not going to be vice president,” he said Thursday on his return to the Senate. “I’m not interested in being governor of Florida. I’m going to finish up my term in the Senate over the next 10 months. We’re going to work really hard here, and we have some things we want to achieve, and then I’ll be a private citizen in January.”
But on a call with supporters from Minnesota last week, he seemed to praise Cruz, calling him “the only conservative left in the race,” according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which obtained a recording of the call.
The case for an unlikely union
Lee, who, like Cruz and Rubio, is in his mid-40s, has been making the case to Republicans that the best way to stop Trump is to bring the two Cuban-American senators together. He has been lobbying Rubio to, at the very least, endorse Cruz.
As Cruz and Rubio tussled during the primary, particularly over immigration policy, Lee expressed some unease with the tenor of the race.
“It’s not easy to see them fighting,” he said before a Cruz event last month in South Carolina.
Without Rubio’s backing, and with Kasich remaining in the race, Cruz has so far struggled to unite the anybody-but-Trump bloc of Republicans. He has received just one new endorsement from his fellow Republican senators, and Rubio’s major donors have been largely quiet about their intentions.
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