News broke Monday afternoon at the National Review that maybe there was hope for a coalescing of Republican heavyweights bothered enough by Donald Trump to endorse the universally loathed Ted Cruz. Yes, the report said, Cruz was ready to announce "a slew of endorsements" from "some members of the upper chamber" who "were beginning to make peace with Cruz, convinced that he’s the only candidate who can stop Trump." Or not, as this appeared overnight.
EDITOR’s NOTE: This post has been updated. An earlier version stated that the Cruz campaign was set to unveil four or more endorsements from Cruz’s fellow senators. The number of senators who will endorse Cruz is not known.
Yeah, they still hate him. But he did win a meaningless straw poll by a tea party PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund. So not everybody hates him. The group, which has been focused on challenging Republican incumbents from the right, polled its "grassroots" members and 65 percent of them went for Cruz to Trump's 25 percent.
That and a buck-fifty will get Cruz a cup of coffee, since this PAC only spends on Senate races. But it does show that the tea party Republicans who hate the GOP establishment the most like Cruz the best. And Cruz's lack of Senate endorsements shows that the feeling is mutual.