Rubio dismissed the notion that he would quit the race and join Cruz as the junior partner on a unified anti-Trump ticket last week, saying that it sounded like something out of “House of Cards.” He was right; it isn’t a decision he can make without considering the interests of his supporters. That aside, however, the question for the day is whether the unified ticket makes sense for either Cruz or Rubio.
The advantage of the ticket for Cruz is that it would essentially guarantee him the nomination if the convention is brokered and Trump loses even though he knows he is unpopular with the party leadership. The disadvantages are that it would saddle him with someone he doesn’t like as a running mate, and he is likely to be the choice of a contested convention in any event. On balance, if I were Cruz, I would probably take that deal.
For Rubio, the deal means that he trades whatever slight chance he has of being chosen as the nominee at a brokered convention for the virtual certainty that he would be the junior member on the ticket under those conditions. Given that his relationship with Cruz is not exactly warm, the best case scenario would be that he would be attending lots of funerals for the next eight years, and would be the heir to the (probably unpopular) Cruz legacy in 2024, while the worst (and most likely) case would be another defeat and more damage to his brand. To me, that is an offer I could refuse.