Utah’s Mike Lee endorses Ted Cruz, calls for Rubio to drop out

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) formally endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday afternoon, calling him a “leader” and calling for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to drop out of the race.

“If Sen. Rubio were asking me that, I would encourage him, and I do encourage him to get behind Ted Cruz,” Lee told reporters.

Lee called Cruz a “close personal friend” and said that while he is the first sitting senator to endorse Cruz, “many” will follow. He asked for the party to unite behind “one leader.”

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“I expect that I’ll be the first of many Republican senators who will endorse Ted Cruz,” Lee said. “I’m confident that more are on the way, and I welcome others to join me.”

Lee also said that he believes that Cruz would be the best person to nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, echoing calls from other Republican senators to wait until the next president is elected to choose a Supreme Court nominee.

“That’s one of the great things about Ted Cruz is that Americans can proceed with great confidence that Ted Cruz will pick an absolutely outstanding person to fill Scalia’s position on the Supreme Court,” he said.

“I’ve got two really good friends in this race,” Lee told reporters at a Cruz campaign stop in South Carolina in February. “Any one of them running alone would have gotten my endorsement a long time ago.”

The endorsement of Cruz over Rubio before Tuesday’s primary in Rubio’s home state of Florida may be a sign that Republicans see Cruz as the candidate who has the best chance to combat Donald Trump.