You gotta be liked to win an election. Gotta be. Something about cruz always rang as phoney to me, and I read his comments as being snide and arrogant. I think that image is the biggest reason he ended up losing. Those who are with his message don't care, but anyone on the fence or otherwise needed to see a different person.

Problems include not getting visibly angry when trump targeted his wife. Likewise when any candidate lies about him. With trump being incorrect like 50% of the time, he needed real indignation that such a person had so many delegates. Instead we got the same tone for everything. A change would have made him look more humane, more relateable, and would also have been more entertaining (ie ratings and viewership).