Ted Cruz sensationally withheld an endorsement of Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention this week earning a chorus of boos from the floor before he was upstaged in a power play by the GOP nominee himself.

Dr Ben Margulies from the Dept. of Politics and International Studies comments:

“Ted Cruz genuinely represents certain very ideologically orthodox sectors of the party that rejected Trump’s populism.

“More importantly, it can be argued that Ted Cruz is a power-hungry narcissist who laid out a platform for his 2020 bid when Trump fails. That Trump let him do it is a sign primarily of his poor organizational skills, or maybe some desire for staged confrontation (someone compared Trump’s appearance on the floor during the speech as a borrowing from professional wrestling).

"It won’t hurt Trump much in the short term, except maybe a little in Texas – Cruz mostly controls the Texas GOP these days, so it may affect how much effort they put into campaigning for Trump.”

For further details please contact Nicola Jones, Media Relations Manager, University of Warwick 07920531221 or N.Jones.1@warwick.ac.uk