Cruz’s problem from day one, before all the ugliness and silliness out of him and his campaign during the primary, is he’s an incredibly weak general election candidate. Sure he can fire up a segment of the base, but he can’t reach out much beyond it, which is abundantly evident by the fact he is getting clobbered in the primaries.
If you can’t win votes outside the conservative base, you can’t win a national election, you may be able to win conservative districts, or even a conservative state, but if that’s all your appeal is, you cannot win a national election.
We’re in trouble no matter what. Our last decent win was 1988. Bush barely won 2000 or 2004.