A couple of points- "hot wiring" a heating element is not recommended by any manufacturer these days, as it bypasses all of the safeties in place to keep the thing from burning down- if you hot wire and the unit is bad, it can catch fire. Now I have been known to hot wire- I just doi not do it when I am not going to be around- never overnight.
A 2012 Norcold would have throw an error if it was not cooling at all- in the original post, 70 degrees was a sign of no cooling, but if it started out at 85, it was, indeed cooling.
Is this in a slideout? Are the fans on the back running?