Kansas delegates: Cruz may not recover from this political mistake

Ted Cruz blundered by not endorsing Donald Trump on Wednesday night, Kansas delegates said.

“How you recover from something like that, I don’t know,” said Cruz delegate Peggy Mast of Emporia.

She said she suspects the Cruz has torpedoed his political career. Big-money donors now may withhold support.

“I don’t believe I’ll get that choice again” to vote for Cruz for president, she said.

Gov. Sam Brownback, who initially endorsed Marco Rubio for the GOP nomination, also said Cruz should’ve endorsed the GOP nominee.

“He and the other candidates took a pledge to support the candidate who wins,” the governor said. “If you took the pledge and said you’d do it, you ought to do it.”

One of Cruz’s biggest backers in Kansas, delegate Beverly Gossage, said her candidate would have walked out of the convention hall last night a hero if he had announced his support of Trump.

“I’m disappointed for the party and disappointed for him personally because I think this could impact his political career,” Gossage said.

Gossage had just had her picture taken with Cruz earlier Wednesday when Cruz arrived in Cleveland.

She can still support the Texas senator and pointed out that Trump had said particularly harsh things about Cruz during the primary campaign.

Said another Cruz delegate, Mike Howerter of the non-endorsement: “That was very disappointing, to say the least. This was his chance, his Reagan moment.”

This story was originally published July 21, 2016 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Kansas delegates: Cruz may not recover from this political mistake."