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WASHINGTON — The runner-up for the 2016 GOP nomination, Sen. Ted Cruz has made no secret of wanting to try again for the White House. The Texan’s actions before and since Election Day appear calibrated to serve that ambition.

He collected chits by jetting to Senate battleground states and lending his star power to embattled colleagues. He raised more for House candidates than almost anyone else. He’ll spend time in Georgia over the next two months to pitch in on two runoffs that will determine control of the Senate.

And importantly, he has gone further than almost anyone not in President Donald Trump’s family or on his payroll in casting doubt on President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, positioning himself as one of the Trumpiest of the post-Trump contenders.

“Wait and let the process play out, the legal process. These results are still being contested in court,” Cruz said in one of his many conservative talk show appearances aimed at assuring the base that it’s not over. “The media has now called it for Joe Biden. They want everyone to shut up, and they say if you dare disagree with their call, that you’re somehow undermining democracy. Well, that’s not actually how our Constitution works.”

If it’s a gambit, it’s a shrewd one in terms of cultivating affection among conservatives Cruz would need to jump start a second president bid.

“He’s a smart guy. I think he knows the election’s over,” said Doug Gross, the GOP nominee for Iowa governor in 2002 and the 2008 state chair of Mitt Romney’s campaign.

But “Trump’s hold on that core base of Republican that would likely be Cruz voters is absolute. So I don’t think he has much of a choice,” he said. “If he wants to run for president, he’s reading his potential constituency in Iowa correctly…. They are a hundred percent Trumpsters. That segment of the Republican Party would be 100% with Trump not giving up.”

Iowa is where the road to the White House starts every four years. Cruz edged out Trump there in the 2016 caucuses and if he can consolidate that bloc, he could be formidable in a party with a history of nominating its runners-up next time around.

“Trump has his diehard supporters. What does he have to lose?” said Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, an assistant dean at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs.

People in Cruz’s inner circle say it’s premature for him to gear up for another White House run.

But, said David Polyansky, his former chief of staff and an advisor on his 2016 presidential campaign, “Ted Cruz is uniquely positioned. He’s got a wind at his back for the 2024 Senate reelection and for whatever else comes down the road. But right now he is wholly focused on his job as a United States Senator and helping Republicans keep the Senate majority by winning both Georgia Senate runoffs.”

As Cruz and some others on the right vigorously echo Trump’s doubts about the integrity of the election, most Republicans, such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have taken a more measured approach – affirming Trump’s right to recounts and litigation without themselves advancing claims of fraud.

Former President George W. Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove, among others, have declared the election over. A handful of GOP senators, notably the 2012 nominee for president, Mitt Romney, have called on Trump to concede.

With Trump adamantly refusing to accept defeat, though, many more Republicans have preferred to humor him rather than risk the wrath they’ve seen him unleash on those who cross him.

That especially makes sense for someone like Cruz, whose base overlaps with Trump’s.

Both positioned themselves as disruptive outsiders when they headed to Washington.

They knitted a tight alliance, once the raw feelings from the 2016 primaries faded. Trump had needled him as “Lyin’ Ted” and asserted that his father was part of the conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. Cruz called the future president a pathological liar, narcissist and serial adulterer.

But there had always been political common ground and as Cruz would say during his 2018 Senate campaign, his choice was to work with the president or get nothing done.

“President Trump is about loyalty. Cruz has duly noted that it’s about loyalty. And Cruz is from a state that is pretty far right,” DeFrancesco Soto said. “It makes sense. I mean, he’s a rational politician.”

‘Did you guys steal the election?’

When Trump was impeached, Cruz put to formidable legal talents to work.

He emerged as one of Trump’s most effective defenders, picking apart the House Democrats’ allegations with attention to detail and slashing rhetoric, and launching what turned out to be a highly popular podcast.

The Verdict sat at No. 51 in the Podchart rankings last week. Cruz’s book about the Supreme Court spent weeks on bestseller lists, propelled by bulk sales and offers of autographed copies for campaign donors.

While he hasn’t exactly echoed Trump’s claims that the election is being stolen –claims that haven’t yet been backed up with evidence – Cruz has fully embraced the related talking points aimed at dispelling the idea that Biden won for sure.

Insinuation has been central to that, for instance, when The New York Times blared across the top of Wednesday’s front page declaring that “Election officials nationwide find no fraud.”

“There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” Republican Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, told The Times. “The conspiracy theories and rumors and all those things run rampant.”

Cruz called it “a little bizarre.”

“The basis for this is they called all of the election officials, which in these blue states many of them are hard partisan Democrats, and said, `Hey did you guys steal the election?’ And they responded, ‘No. No, we didn’t steal the election,’ ” Cruz told conservative talker Steven Crowder on his “Louder with Crowder” show. “It’s like we called all the bank robbers, and they promised us there are no bank robberies in America. Like, if there is fraud, and you’re asking the people who are running it, they’re going to tell you there’s not.”

The artful wording allowed Cruz to insinuate that the election was being stolen without directly making that claim.

“Stolen – that’s a pretty strong word to use,” said Danny Carroll, a former Iowa GOP chair who backed Cruz in 2016. “Most Iowa Republicans are just taking a wait and see attitude. If there was fraud, then there has to be evidence, and that evidence has to be presented in a court of law and justice determined.”

Presidential ambitions

Carroll foresees no particular payoff for candidates who can point back to this fraught moment and boast about their time in the trenches with Trump, crying foul over the loss to Biden.

He’ll be looking for someone who supported Trump’s policies “while at the same time being their own person.…. It’s going to be a balance that way.”

As for Cruz, he said, “I would be very open to his candidacy four years from now,” though he cautioned that candidates can’t take previous supporters for granted. “Times change. Circumstances change. You got to start over and make your case now.”

One complication for Cruz: he’s up for reelection in 2024, though under Texas’ 1959 “LBJ law” he could appear on the ballot for both Senate and national office. Lyndon Johnson in 1960 and Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, both Democrats, used that law to run for vice president.

Cruz barely edged past Democrat Beto O’Rourke in 2018, collecting just 51% of the vote, the worst showing for a Texas Republican running statewide since 1994.

The presidential dash won’t start in earnest before early 2023. But Iowans have already gotten a look at plenty of GOP contenders lately.

Vice President Mike Pence stumped there shortly before Election Day. So did Donald Trump Jr. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo showed up in July to talk farm policy and faith.

Cruz and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton stumped for Sen. Joni Ernst, as did South Carolina rivals Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and governor, and Sen. Tim Scott.

Much will hinge on whether Trump devotes his post-presidency to golf or politics. Unless he rules out another run, “that will tend to freeze the field, and make it very difficult for the Cruzes and the Cottons to get traction,” said Gross.

His assessment of an upside for Cruz to push the narrative that the election is tainted, and unsettled, doesn’t mean he approves.

“My concern is that our party’s going to be long term marginalized, because at the end of the day, it can potentially threaten the safety and security of our country,” he said.

Georgia on his mind

Many of those 2024 hopefuls will be trekking to Georgia in the next seven weeks – ground zero in the fight for the U.S. Senate.

Republicans have 50 seats locked in, but a tie goes to the Democrats once Sen. Kamala Harris becomes vice president. And Georgia’s Republican senators, David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler, are both fighting for survival in a rare Jan. 5 runoff after falling short of the 50% needed under state law.

Money has been pouring in. Cruz, like others, has posted fundraising appeals, and booking plane tickets as the state suddenly transforms into a proving ground for would-be presidents.

“If you don’t want to go over the edge to the socialist abyss, Georgia is the big enchilada. I’m going be there and everyone who wants to see some semblance of calm and reason and sanity, Georgia’s the battle where that’s going to be determined,” Cruz told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” last weekend.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was there Wednesday. Cotton, Scott, Haley and others have passed through, and will again.

“There’ll be a cavalcade of them,” said Brian Robinson, a Georgia GOP strategist. “This is the only game in town for the next two months. The stakes couldn’t be higher.”

Team player

For Cruz, it’s a continuation of efforts he’s undertaken all year.

The final week of the 2020 campaign, he jetted from one Senate battleground to the next.

In the span of a few days he stumped for Sens. Thom Tillis in western North Carolina, Steven Daines in Billings, Mont., Joni Ernst in northern Iowa – after a side trip to California for a fundraiser benefiting the party’s Senate campaign arm — then on to Arizona to help Martha McSally and South Texas, where he stumped with his fellow Texan, Sen. John Cornyn, in Victoria.

All but McSally won reelection.

At least 13 U.S. House members taking the oath of office in January also got significant help from Cruz, including four Texans.

His former chief of staff Chip Roy, an Austin Republican, won a second term against former state Sen. Wendy Davis in one of the nation’s costliest races.

Cruz also backed Pat Fallon, a former state senator from Prosper who will replace John Ratcliffe, now director of national intelligence; August Pfluger, an Air Force veteran who succeeds Mike Conaway in a safe West Texas GOP district; and former Fort Bend County sheriff Troy Nehls, who replaces Rep. Pete Olson in a suburban Houston district that Democrats had been eager to flip.

The fund Cruz launched to help GOP nominees doled out $2.2 million as of mid-October to 25 hopefuls. Only the two top House Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise, did more.

The endorsements came with Facebook call-outs, in-person appearances and campaign cash – up to $136,000 for his most favored candidates. Cruz focused on like-minded conservatives who aligned closely with Trump’s “America First” agenda, railed against “socialism” and warned that religious liberties were under assault.

In Iowa, Cruz gave $53,875 to nominee Randy Feenstra, a state senator – after Feenstra defeated Cruz’s 2016 campaign co-chair, immigration hardliner Steve King, a nine-term congressman shunned by GOP leaders after he defended white supremacy.

In Texas, Cruz-backed Wesley Hunt fell short against freshman Rep. Lizzie Fletcher in a Houston district Democrats nabbed two years ago.

In a few contests, Cruz bucked the party establishment – and Trump himself.

In West Texas, Cruz backed Raul Reyes to the tune of $110,000 in a fierce primary and runoff to replace Rep. Will Hurd, a San Antonio Republican. Trump’s pick, Tony Gonzalez prevailed, and won the seat.

The tale was much the same in Tennessee’s Senate primary, one of year’s testier intramural contests.

Cruz fought hard for trauma surgeon Manny Sethi, bestowing the moniker he claims for himself: “conservative warrior.” Trump’s pick, Bill Hagerty, his former ambassador to Japan, sailed past Cruz’s by 12 points.

Nor was Cruz’s backing enough to save a key ally in New Hampshire, home of the first in the nation presidential primary. Bill O’Brien, a former state House speaker angling for U.S. Senate, didn’t even last until the primary.

“There’s nobody that’s had a better year politically than Ted Cruz,” said Polyansky. “And that puts him in a position to make some really smart and strategic decisions down the road.