WASHINGTON-Six months before Republican voters decide whether he deserves a second term in the Senate, Ted Cruz is barnstorming Texas this month with appearances planned in more than 20 cities.
They're official stops-meetings with executives, along with factory and border outpost tours-and not campaign events, but nonetheless indicate the senator is signaling to voters and rivals that he's serious about keeping his job.
After events near Dallas, Houston, Amarillo and Lubbock this month, Cruz heads to West Texas and the Rio Grande Valley next week, where he'll make as many as five appearances-in one day.
He's then scheduled to crisscross the state with stops in such places as Abilene, Wichita Falls and Waco before heading to the Gulf Coast by month's end.
Some say it's a sign Cruz is taking his busy Democratic challenger, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, more seriously. But along the way, he's also sending a clear message to potential primary challengers while shoring up support among a base rattled by President Donald Trump.
Cruz's team calls the series the "Ted Works for Texas Tour," with a focus on his congressional agenda, such as rewriting the nation's tax code, as well as Texas-specific issues, including NAFTA renegotiations and border security.
But Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist, said it's more like a "Ted Cruz reunion tour."
In 2012, a largely unknown Cruz defeated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst by blanketing Texas, willing to meet with anyone, anywhere, to talk about his legislative goals.
But after he landed in Washington, the senator took some heat for focusing more on a national agenda and personal presidential ambitions than representing Texas.
"They often return to their roots during election time," Jones joked.
Now, "Cruz is sending a signal, especially to any Republican primary challenger, that if they want to go head to head with him in March, they better be willing to do this same type of barnstorming."
O'Rourke, meanwhile, is in the midst of a 34-day "Town Hauling Across Texas" tour in places including Garland, Amarillo and Victoria, where he's holding a series of town halls and meet-and-greets. He criticized Cruz for not spending enough time on the ground.
"I ask almost everybody: Tell me the last time Ted Cruz held a town hall in your community, where anyone can come out and ask a question, and it's always met with laughter, because he hasn't and he doesn't," O'Rourke told The Dallas Morning News, pledging to hold monthly town halls back in Texas should he be elected. "The things I've seen him do are controlled, filtered exercises where you really don't have an opportunity to hold him accountable."
In addition to O'Rourke, two little-known Republicans have announced plans to challenge Cruz for his seat next year: Stefano de Stefano, a Houston energy attorney, as well as Dan McQueen, the former mayor of Corpus Christi who quit after just 37 days.
In the wake of Cruz's refusal to endorse then-candidate Trump at the 2016 national convention, there was also talk of a challenge from well-financed Austin Rep. Michael McCaul, though those rumors have largely disappeared.
University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said polling indicates Cruz has made up ground he lost with GOP voters last year. Now, it's the president who many worry will cost the GOP votes in 2018, giving Cruz urgency to reacquaint himself with his base.
With the president's favorability numbers slipping further due to his much-criticized response to violence in Charlottesville, Va., among other missteps, Rottinghaus and Jones said Cruz knows there's work to be done with GOP voters and Hispanic Republicans, in particular.
"Many Republicans in Congress are well aware that Donald Trump is doing 2018 Republican Party candidates no favors right now, especially in a state with a demographic like Texas where Republicans depend on overwhelming Anglo support, along with significant Latino support," Jones said.
Rottinghaus noted many of Cruz's planned stops are in places with large concentrations of Hispanic voters-a likely tactic to blunt Texas Democrats' efforts to bring more Latino voters to the blue side.
"The rhetoric and aggressive politics from the Legislature have alienated many Latino voters from the Republican Party," Rottinghaus said. "Cruz recognizes that he has the advantage of being seen as someone separate from that, and that having a Latino surname can help Latino voters stay on his side."
Rottinghaus expects Cruz will be more insulated from a potential down-ballot effect than others "because he signaled the alarm as early as anyone about the Trump presidency, and he may actually receive some benefit from distancing himself from Trump early."
Cruz would ultimately endorse Trump for the nation's highest office and has proven himself a worthy foot soldier in the time since.
He played a key role in trying to shepherd a conservative compromise in the GOP's bid to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. Though the broader effort failed, Cruz's efforts signaled that he wanted to both deepen his friendships within the Senate and aid the White House agenda.
More recently, he has sought to thread the needle between supporting the president's legislative priorities and speaking against Trump's more controversial statements, such as his response to the neo-Nazi clash in Charlottesville in which the president said "both sides" share some responsibility for the violence.
Cruz, by contrast, immediately called for a Department of Justice investigation into the murder of a woman who died when a man rammed his car into counterprotesters, an act the Texan said was clear domestic terrorism.
And asked about the president's doubling down that "both sides" shared blame, Cruz said this week that "the president speaks for himself."
"Cruz is showing himself to be a rather prescient politician," Jones said. "All but Donald Trump's most die-hard supporters realize Cruz was speaking a lot of truth on the Quicken Loans Arena floor. At the same time, he's made sufficient amends with the Trump administration and Trump supporters are not viewing Ted Cruz as an adversary."
Cruz is expected to win his 2018 re-election bid, but not without some fight.
O'Rourke, who received national attention for his bipartisan road trip with San Antonio Republican Rep. Will Hurd earlier this year, has modeled Cruz's election strategy by steadily visiting far-flung towns across Texas since declaring his candidacy in March.
As a Democrat in a deeply red state, he's seen as a long shot. But he's already shown notable fundraising prowess, bringing in $2.3 million just a few short months after he jumped in the race. As of June 30, he had $1.9 million in cash on hand.
Cruz raised $2.3 million in the same time period, but had about $5.1 million in cash on hand at the end of June.
"At this point, O'Rourke is the only statewide candidate from the Democrats who has put up much of a fight and has a credible chance at competing against a Republican," Rottinghaus said. "Since Cruz recognizes that environmentally he needs to take this challenge seriously."