{UAH} Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio Grow Apart as Their Ambitions Expand - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — When he ran for the Senate from Texas in 2012, Ted Cruz welcomed the comparisons on Capitol Hill and in the news media to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another 41-year-old Cuban-American and oratorically gifted conservative, who had ridden a wave of Tea Party support two years earlier to victory over his state's Republican establishment.

But Mr. Cruz also sought a more direct connection to Mr. Rubio, making several pilgrimages to his Washington office for advice, as well as an endorsement, according to people who were members of Mr. Rubio's staff at the time.

Mr. Rubio, by then outgrowing his Tea Party stage and seeking to position himself as a party leader who did not meddle in others' primaries, never found room in his schedule for Mr. Cruz, who had to settle for a meeting with Mr. Rubio's staff members.

Mr. Cruz won without Mr. Rubio's endorsement, and later confided to a Republican senator that he "resented" Mr. Rubio's reluctance to endorse him. 

Now, the two Republican stars, biographically similar but stylistically opposite, are running for president, and Mr. Cruz is privately telling colleagues that he believes the race for the party's nomination will boil down to a contest between himself and Mr. Rubio.

But over the last few months, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Rubio have staked out opposing positions in the Senate that could become strengths, or weaknesses, in a two-man race. 

"They both walk to the edge of the pool," said Jennifer Duffy, a Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "Cruz always jumps in."

Other Republican senators said that while Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz were never close, they had detected a chill between the two. "Their relationship has diverged," Senator John McCain of Arizona said.

One senator used the word "wariness." Another said that an unpersuasive argument for getting one on board with legislation would be pointing out that it was championed by the other. 

Now both 44 and eager to become the first Latino president, Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz are content to stay out of each other's way on the campaign trial, both seeming more concerned now with clearing out competitors in their respective lanes. 

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