“We’ve got to win the White House in ’24. And I think that is absolutely critical. But the first step is taking Congress back,” said Ted Cruz, who has been stumping for GOP candidates around the country.
Meg Kinnard/AP Photo

Both Cotton and Scott were asked at a recent Vance event in Ohio about their presidential plans. Cotton said the topic takes a back seat to what’s in front of him: “There’s a time to shoot at the 300-meter target, but you’ve got to make sure you hit the 50-meter target. And right now [2022] is the 50-meter target.”

Another emerging trail star who’s preparing to ascend to the No. 4 GOP leader job, Ernst, is playing in Senate races from blue Washington to red Ohio. She declined consideration as Trump’s running mate in 2016 but could easily find herself in the mix again for a national office.

“We’ve heard a lot about a red wave in November — but that’s not just going to happen. Yes, recent history is on our side for the midterms, but it takes hard work. You have to engage directly with the voters, hear from them, and make the case,” Ernst said in a statement for this story. “I’ve been helping our candidates do just that.”

She added that if Republicans do indeed flip both chambers, the party has “to prove to voters they made the right choice by not only putting a check on Joe Biden but improving the lives of our families.”

As the conference’s campaign committee chair, Rick Scott’s been ubiquitous himself in the media and on the stump — more so than some previous chairs. The Florida senator’s appeared in 10 states with Senate races over the last two weeks, including Iowa and New Hampshire.

Another senator who has openly discussed another run is Marco Rubio, who first needs to close out his reelection campaign in battleground Florida this fall.

As for 2016 presidential candidate Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the Trump critic-turned-adviser said there’s no sequel to his ill-fated White House run: “He’s trying to win control of the Senate. Nothing more, nothing less,” a spokesperson for Graham said.

And Hawley endorsed Vance and Arizona Senate nominee Masters early in this cycle’s primaries. Those moves eventually aligned him with Trump, though they picked different nominees in Hawley’s home-state primary. Both Rick Scott and Hawley say they plan to run for Senate reelection in 2024.

Like Hawley, Cruz was active in the midterms’ Senate primaries, endorsing victorious candidates Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt while backing losing hopefuls Josh Mandel in Ohio and David McCormick in Pennsylvania. Cruz also has taken an expansive interest in House races, trying to flip Democratic seats in South Texas while raising money in batches for the second cycle in a row.

Racing around the country campaigning has meant spending about five nights at home this month and missing his daughter’s birthday, Cruz said. The hard push is worthwhile, as he tells it, because the kind of majority Republicans will end up with is as important as control of Congress.

Republican voters, Cruz said, are “incredibly frustrated that there are lots of candidates who sound great on the stump, and they get to Washington and they get sucked into the swamp.”