>>Brand loyalty seldom creeps in.
It did in this case. A lot of people look at Cruz and project an image of Reagan on him. They can’t see the career politician/lawyer under the hologram. Fortunately, his actions late in the primary season are making that Reagan hologram awful flickery.
Cruz, however, had a long history of defending the US Constitution, even before the Supreme Court, and far more often than the vast majority of those in the Senate or elsewhere in DC got it right. That, on its own merit, was enough to win my support. Original Intent goes a long way with me. I didn't need to project any image on that, just take someone who was right most of the time for the right reasons.