Guess which Cuban-American 2016 candidate best set themselves up for 2020?

Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have plenty in common. Both at one point or another associated themselves with the Tea Party to catapult them to their senate seats. They’re both Cuban-American United States senators who ran for their party’s presidential nomination this year. Both of them also gave speeches at the Republican National Convention last week. But it was in those speeches where we saw the sharpest contrast between the two in terms of setting up for potential presidential runs in 2020.

Conventions are usually candidate love fests, filled with speeches extolling the nominee and trying to convince the American people why they should vote for their candidate. It’s a time where even the fiercest of primary competitors agree to bury the hatchet for the good of the party. This is how political losses are supposed to be taken. You grit your teeth and endorse your opponent because it is the only way your party will get a person elected to that position. In presidential politics, this allows you to close one chapter and look forward to the next, and allows for a clean slate to regroup and possibly court the groups that did not support you the first go round.

{mosads}From a historical context, this is how it has always worked. John McCain suffered one of the most contentious and heartbreaking defeats in recent memory when he ran for president in 2000. Even though he strongly disliked George W. Bush, he still endorsed him and was able to move on and successfully clinch the nomination eight years later. Ronald Reagan ran a primary challenge to Gerald Ford in 1976, but had the vision to endorse Ford when he eventually lost. Because of this he was able to put ‘76 in the rear view to go on to run two of the most successful presidential and re-election campaigns in American history.

Ted Cruz’s exhibit in bridge burning effectively put that strategy out of commission for himself and his potential 2020 campaign. The immediate aftermath of Cruz’s speech was damning. Rubio meanwhile, kept that door open for himself. His speech allowed for his current opponents to see how gracious he is in defeat, and he can now use this gracious exit to actively build his base and form new coalitions in 2020.

Cruz went out of his way to refuse to endorse the Republican nominee Donald J. Trump in what I’m gonna take the liberty of calling, ‘vote-your-conscience-gate’. Cruz wanted to set himself up to be the lone voice of reason against Trump once the dust settles on this election. It was an incredibly unnecessary and risky move, one that relies too much on the prospect of a Hillary Clinton blowout victory to even have a chance to possibly work. The move was typical Ted Cruz, a man so smug I wouldn’t put it past him to recommission Mt. Rushmore into four sculptures of himself if he ever became president. He did not endorse Trump because he still thinks he is better suited to become president, a sentiment which the majority of Republican voters soundly rejected this primary season.

Rubio has said some very disparaging things about Donald Trump, and probably doesn’t feel that he is fit to become president. But with endorsing Trump at the convention, I do believe Rubio has successfully made the pivot from 2016 to 2020. He acknowledged that the people made their decision, and that it is a decision that needs to be accepted for the good of the party.

People don’t forget, especially people who have influence on and closely follow American politics. If the backlash is this severe following what Cruz did, imagine what it’s gonna be like when he re-emerges as a serious candidate in 2020? The last thing people will remember of him is sabotaging a major party candidate for president for the sake of himself. Meanwhile in endorsing Trump, Marco Rubio has successfully made moves to fly under the radar for the rest of this election and to emerge as the candidate in 2020 who put party over self, and who used his time and platform a heck of a lot better than did Sen. Cruz.

Miles Brown works for an educational technology company in New York City and hopes to go into educational policy in the near future.