Senator Ted Cruz is set to speak Wednesday night at the RNC convention in Cleveland. The big question looming seems to be whether an endorsement is forthcoming.

In an interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush, Cruz opined on the state of the party, going forward.

“In this election I am where a great many voters are, which is that I am listening and watching and coming to a decision,” Cruz, the highest-profile Trump holdout heading into this week’s convention, told me when I asked him if he intended to throw his support behind the former reality TV star imminently.

Cruz joins others, such as the Bush family and former rival, Ohio Governor John Kasich in holding back any explicit endorsement.

In fact, he has so far had more positive things to say about Mike Pence, Trump’s veep choice.

When I asked him whether Trump’s selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence — a fellow faith-and-values conservative who endorsed Cruz in the primaries — would make any difference, he offered only generic praise. “I think very highly of Pence,” he told me. “He’s a good man. I think he’s been a good governor. He did a good job in Congress. And so, you know, I certainly congratulate him on being named.”

Senator Cruz is sharp. He’s very well positioned to take advantage of the momentum he has now, and should Hillary walk away with a win in November, in 2020, the conservative movement gets another chance.

“Most wars are not won in a single battle,” said Cruz, who is still paying campaign staff to plan and to create a detailed post-mortem of the 2016 primaries (one thing he’s looking at, I’m told: whether his “New York values” quip about Trump was a blunder).

“What I’m looking forward to is changing the course this country is on. I don’t know if that happens in this election cycle or not,” he added.

When I asked him what message his supporters have been sending him in the three months since Trump became the party’s de facto nominee, he answered: “There’s a lot of despair.”

He also (rightly) called out a complicit media on their role in foisting an unelectable, incoherent, authoritarian on the people.

“Four weeks before we dropped out, we were winning the race,” Cruz told me. “Eighty percent of [Marco Rubio’s] supporters came to us and the party was unifying behind us. … In the 30 days before Indiana primary, Trump got $500 million in free media, 90 percent was positive. What the media said on every station is, ‘Trump is unbeatable, he can’t be beaten’ — while he’s losing.”

It’s no secret that Cruz’s team and his allies have a beef with Fox News for what they believe to be pro-Trump bias (one person in Cruz’s orbit said he’s so disgusted with Fox he hasn’t watched the network since he dropped out in May). But he sees a more insidious hidden hand behind the media’s Trump obsession: liberal news executives who elevated Trump in the primary because they think he’s the only candidate Hillary Clinton can actually beat in a general election.

“I think many of the mainstream media players are liberal Democrats,” Cruz explained. “They intend to vote for Hillary. They believed Donald was the easiest candidate for Hillary to beat. And I think many of them wanted him to win the nomination. I don’t think it was innocent decision-making behind this.”

As Thrush points out, however, Trump still needs Cruz’s supporters to win. More than 50% of Cruz primary voters say they will not vote for Trump. This is in direct opposition to the scores of Trump supporters who have declared the GOP “their party now,” and claim that they can win without conservative voters.

If they’re right, bully for them, but if they’re wrong, you can probably pre-order your Cruz 2020 yard signs.