Ted Cruz's presidential campaign may not get many endorsements from Senate colleagues. Not coincidentally, the Texas senator is racking up support from primary challengers who tried but failed to unseat some of those senators last year.
Tennessee's Joe Carr, Mississippi's Chris McDaniel, and South Carolina's Lee Bright, three conservatives who opposed longtime GOP senators in 2014 primaries, have all backed Cruz for president. It's a small part of Cruz's effort to do next year what those candidates did last year: serve as a vessel for conservative voters' frustration with the political establishment.
"I think he embodies the mood of the folks around the country," said Bright, Cruz's South Carolina campaign co-chair. Bright added that Cruz is "the anti-establishment candidate, and that's what many of us were, and I think that's why we've gravitated towards him."
Then there's McDaniel, Cruz's Mississippi co-chair whose challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran was one of 2014's bitterest campaigns. McDaniel, a state senator, joined Cruz on the campaign trail in Mississippi earlier this month.
