Yes he did AFTER he and Paul cut a deal with McConnel in January 2014. McConnell would not oppose them running for President in return for Cruz and Paul not opposing any incumbent Senators (including McConnell running in 2014. Cruz was added to the NRSC as a vice-chairman. They kept quiet during the Mississippi debacle.
Cruz made the mistake of believing McConnell after the election was over and McConnell screwed him in 2015. Like Wimpy in Popeye, McConnell promised to pay them tomorrow for a hamburger today.
Cruz is too gullible and just is not ready to be President yet.
Just after the Texansâ election in November 2012, GOP leader Mitch McConnell â now the Senate majority leaderâasked Cruz to serve as NRSC vice chairman in charge of grassroots outreach. In effect, he sought to bring the tea partier into the tent by making him the liaison to tea partiers.
But it quickly became obvious that Cruz wasnât so much of a team player.
He sought to recruit and promote like-minded conservatives ahead of the 2014 GOP primaries. He worked with outside groups that sometimes backed candidates other than those picked and approved by the NRSC â in particular, the Senate Conservatives Fund, which backed challengers to a number of incumbent Republicans, even including McConnell.
The NRSCâs chief goal is to protect incumbent Republican senators, with growing the GOPâs ranks a close runner up.
In the Senate itself, Cruz regularly bucked party leadership â most notably in instigating the government shutdown in fall 2013, over demands to defund Obamacare.