Ted Cruz the most hated man in Washington.

Ted Cruz built a brand on being the most hated man in Washington. Now what?
Amber Phillips

Cruz's reputation, after all, is what brought him to the dance. But his lack of likability wound up hurting him toward the end.

On Tuesday, his first full day back in the Senate, he gave no indication to reporters he was drastically changing his strategy. "I look forward to pressing in the Senate the very same things I was pressing for on the campaign trail," he said.

Cruz — as he is now — is not that guy. He is arguably the most reviled man in Washington, or at least he was before Trump. Republicans have called him a "jackass" and "Lucifer in the flesh" — and that's just one (mouthy) guy — and have mused that he could be murdered on the Senate floor and nobody would be convicted.

What's perhaps more damaging for Cruz's relationships is that many Senate Republicans feel as if they can't trust him. Cruz has been known to pull a parliamentary stunt and stop up the whole Senate without any warning to his colleagues, even when explicitly offered the chance to give them a heads up.

One frustrating Friday night in 2014, the entire Senate had to turn around on their way home because Cruz decided to surprise them by taking one of his short-lived stands. And that's another habit of Cruz's that really ticks off senators: He's often the only person to benefit from his dramatic, time-consuming and sometimes politically costly maneuvers.

[5 times Ted Cruz went to war with the Republican establishment]

Cruz may indeed harbor visions of a 2020 run. But he's got some time on his hands, so he might find he actually wants to do work in the Senate and prove he can work with colleagues in a presidential way.

Cruz does seem to have a diverse array of interests. Like, did you know he's actually championed two bills President Obama has signed into law?

One law denies visas to “known terrorists” from serving as ambassadors to the United Nations, which is headquartered in New York. Another law gives private companies ownership over what they mine on asteroids in space, an attempt to push government-funded space travel to the private sector.

As of right now, there are very few people who want to work with him on much of anything. It's in Cruz's power to change that and grow as a politician.

Stay the same: Cruz's fight isn't over

Cruz can still capitalize on the reputation he's built, even if it didn't work out for him the way he had hoped.

He could be the next Jim DeMint, writes conservative blogger Erick Erickson. Like the former South Carolina senator who now heads a conservative think tank, Cruz could recruit, fund and help train tea party candidates to join him in the Senate, furthering the grassroots conservative cause he hopes to lead.

And it's not like with Cruz's exit in the presidential race, the establishment vs. insurgent battle in the GOP has dissipated. It's still raging, and Cruz has an opportunity to be a key figure in it.

It's no secret that Cruz traveled the nation running for president bragging not about what he's done, but what he's tried to stop: Obama's health-care law. Obama's immigration actions. The Export-Import Bank. But toward the end of his campaign, Cruz offered a suspiciously convenient olive branch to Congress:

We don't expect Cruz to launch another presidential bid on his bipartisan record, but he may want to keep that campaign promise in his back pocket for the next time he needs to the establishment to come to his rescue. Extending an actual olive branch even a little bit would go a long way. At the end of 2015, Cruz was ranked one of the least bipartisan senators in recent decades by the nonpartisan Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

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