Did Cruz's non-endorsement help or hinder his 2020 presidential aspirations?

[PeteB]

Hinder - big time. And I say this as someone who believes that Trump Never should have been even a GOP candidate, much less the GOP nominee.

Cruz had only three options:

1. Skip the Convention and quietly show what he felt (aka do a Kasich).
2. Attend the Convention and mount a fight from Day one, asking to be put into nomination, etc. (he would have lost, but then he would at least have shown a fighting spirit and strength of character and energized his supporters) and
3. Endorse Trump (aka do a Rubio)

He chose a fourth option which looks weasel-y and will win him few friends but many enemies. And the fact that he seems to have misled Trump's people about the endorsement will not help his character story in the future.

[PeteB]

It seems to me that Cruz is making a bet that a lot of the Trump primary supporters will simply not show up to vote in the primaries in 2020 and it will be a more normal process. Trump did bring in a lot of voters who were general election Republican voters (including many R leaning indies) but tended not to vote in primaries. Cruz wants a do over and go back to his plan of dominating with the evangelicals and riding them to victory with early wins in IA and SC and then sweeping the south on Super Tuesday.   

It is noteworthy that one of the things his delegates were pushing for at the RNC was to get all GOP primaries and caucuses closed. They failed in that effort but that didn't change his speech. He just better hope those Trump primary voters don't show up or have a short memory.   

And in fact, Cruz probably missed his golden opportunity. He could have traded his endorsement of Trump for Trump's agreement to close the primaries, sit pretty and win, whatever happens in November