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Wikipedia

Ted Cruz

February 16, 2024

"Senator Cruz" redirects here. For other uses, see Senator Cruz (disambiguation).

Rafael Edward Cruz (/kruːz/; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician, attorney, and political commentator serving as the junior United States senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz was the solicitor general of Texas from 2003 to 2008.

Ted Cruz
Official portrait, 2019
United States Senator
from Texas
Assumed office
January 3, 2013
Serving with John Cornyn
Preceded byKay Bailey Hutchison
Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce Committee
Assumed office
January 3, 2023
Preceded byRoger Wicker
3rd Solicitor General of Texas
In office
January 9, 2003 – May 12, 2008
Appointed byGreg Abbott
Preceded byJulie Parsley
Succeeded byJames C. Ho
Personal details
Born
Rafael Edward Cruz

(1970-12-22) December 22, 1970 (age 53)
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Citizenship
  • United States
  • Canada (1970–2014)[1]
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
​
(m. 2001)​
Children2
Parent(s)Rafael Cruz
Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh
Education
Occupation
  • Politician
  • attorney
Signature
WebsiteSenate office
Ted Cruz's voice
Ted Cruz commemorates Juneteenth
Recorded June 18, 2021

After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Cruz pursued a career in politics, later working as a policy advisor in the George W. Bush administration. In 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to serve as Solicitor General, a position he held through 2008. In 2012, Cruz was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Hispanic-American[2] to serve as a U.S. senator from Texas. In the Senate, he has taken consistently conservative positions on economic and social policy; he played a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown, seeking to force Congress and President Barack Obama to defund the Affordable Care Act. He was reelected in a close Senate race in 2018 against Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke.

On March 23, 2015, Cruz announced he was running for president. Despite having only been a senator for two years, he emerged as a serious contender in the Republican primaries. The competition for the Republican presidential nomination between Cruz and front-runner Donald Trump was heated and characterized by a series of public personal attacks. After Trump won the nomination, Cruz initially declined to endorse him, but he became a staunch supporter of Trump during his presidency. After the January 2021 Capitol attack, Cruz received widespread political and popular backlash for objecting to the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election and giving credence to the false claim that the election was fraudulent.[3]

Early life and family

Rafael Edward Cruz was born on December 22, 1970,[4][5] at Foothills Medical Centre[6][7] in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Eleanor Elizabeth (née Darragh) Wilson and Rafael Cruz.[8][9][10][11] Cruz's mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She is of three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Italian descent, and earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.[12][13]

Cruz's father, Rafael, was born and raised in Cuba, the son of a Canary Islander who immigrated to Cuba as a child.[14] As a teenager in the 1950s, Rafael Cruz was beaten by agents of Fulgencio Batista for opposing the Batista regime.[15] He left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin and obtained political asylum in the United States after his four-year student visa expired.[16] He earned Canadian citizenship in 1973[6] and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2005.[10][17][18]

At the time of his birth, Ted Cruz's parents had lived in Calgary for three years and were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic-data processing firm for oil drilling.[10][19][20][21][22] Cruz has said that he is the son of "two mathematicians/computer programmers".[23] In 1974, Cruz's father left the family and moved to Texas.[24] Later that year, Cruz's parents reconciled and relocated the family to Houston.[6] They divorced in 1997.[25] Cruz has two older half-sisters, Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz, from his father's first marriage. Miriam died in 2011 from a drug overdose.[25][26][27]

Cruz began going by Ted at age 13.[28]

Education

For junior high school, Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston.[29] Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy, near Katy, Texas;[30] and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988.[17][31][32] During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation, a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frédéric Bastiat.[22][33]

After high school, Cruz studied public policy at Princeton University.[34][4][35] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship.[36] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and, with his debate partner David Panton, Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association.[36] Cruz and Panton later represented Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship, losing in the semifinals to a team from Australia.[37][38][39] Princeton's debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz.[39] At Princeton, Cruz was a member of Colonial Club.[40] His 115-page senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers; its title, Clipping the Wings of Angels: The History and Theory Behind the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, was inspired by a passage attributed to James Madison from the 51st essay of the Federalist Papers: "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect their constituents' rights, and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all-powerful state.[12][41] Cruz graduated from Princeton in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude.[citation needed]

Cruz then attended Harvard Law School,[4][42] where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.[43] He was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[35] Referring to Cruz's time as a student at Harvard Law, professor Alan Dershowitz said that Cruz was "off-the-charts brilliant."[44][45][46][47] Cruz graduated from Harvard Law in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree magna cum laude.[citation needed]

Legal career

Clerkships

After law school, Cruz served as a law clerk for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1995 to 1996,[43][48] and then for Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1996 to 1997.[4]

Private practice

After his Supreme Court clerkship, Cruz worked in private practice as an associate at the law firm Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal (now Cooper & Kirk, PLLC) from 1997 to 1998.[49] At the firm, Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.[50] In 1998, Cruz was briefly one of the attorneys who represented Representative John Boehner during his litigation against Representative Jim McDermott over the alleged leak of an illegal recording of a phone conversation whose participants included Boehner.[51][52]

Bush administration

Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.[49] During the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, he assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devising strategy, and drafting pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court in the case Bush v. Gore.[43][53] Cruz recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to Bush's legal team.[50]

After Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the United States Department of Justice[4][53] and as the director of policy planning at the Federal Trade Commission.[4][44][53]

Texas Solicitor General

In 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to be the solicitor general of Texas.[48][54][33][43] The office was established in 1999 to handle appeals involving the Texas state government, but Abbott hired Cruz with the idea that Cruz would take a "leadership role in the United States in articulating a vision of strict constructionism". As Texas solicitor general, Cruz argued before the U.S. Supreme Court nine times, winning five cases and losing four.[50] He authored 70 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented 34 appellate oral arguments.[44][48][55] His nine appearances before the Supreme Court are the most by any practicing lawyer in Texas or current member of Congress.[56] Cruz has said, "We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights."[56]

In 2003, while Cruz was Texas Solicitor General, the Texas Attorney General's office declined to defend Texas's sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning homosexual sex were unconstitutional.[57] In the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states arguing that the Washington, D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.[55][58] He also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[55][59]

 
Cruz at the Values Voter Summit in October 2011

Cruz successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5–4 in Van Orden v. Perry.[44][43][55]

In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case surrounding a challenge to the constitutionality of public schools' requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (including the words "under God", legally a part of the Pledge since 1954), Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.[44][43] He wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states that argued that the plaintiff, a non-custodial parent, did not have standing to file suit on his daughter's behalf.[60] The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz's brief.[61]

Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was decided 5–4 in his favor in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.[43][62]

In Medellín v. Texas, Cruz successfully defended Texas against an attempt to reopen the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and on death row.[44][43][48][55] With the support of the George W. Bush administration, the petitioners argued that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate.[50][63] They based their case on a decision of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case, which ruled that by failing to allow access to the Mexican consulate, the United States had breached its obligations under the convention.[64] Texas won the case in a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court holding that ICJ decisions were not binding in domestic law and that the President had no power to enforce them.[50][63]

Michael Wayne Haley was arrested for stealing a calculator from Walmart in 1997.[65] Because of Haley's previous criminal convictions, he was sentenced to 16+1⁄2 years in prison under the Texas habitual offender law. After Haley had exhausted his appeals, it became known that Haley's robbery offense occurred three days before one of his other convictions was finalized; this raised a question about the applicability of the habitual offender statute in his case. As Solicitor General, Cruz declined to vacate Haley's sentence, saying, "I think justice is being done because he had a full and fair trial and an opportunity to raise his errors."[66] The Supreme Court later remanded the case to lower courts based on Haley's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. During oral argument, Cruz conceded that Haley had a very strong argument for ineffective assistance of counsel since Haley's attorney failed to recognize the sentencing error and that he would not move to have Haley re-incarcerated during the appeal process.[66] After remand, Haley was re-sentenced to "time served".[67]

In 2008 American Lawyer magazine named Cruz one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,[54][68] and The National Law Journal named him one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.[69][70] In 2010 Texas Lawyer named him one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.[71][72]

Return to private practice

After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008, Cruz joined the Houston office of the Philadelphia-based law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, often representing corporate clients.[12][43][73] At Morgan Lewis, he led the firm's U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.[73] In 2010, he abandoned a bid for state attorney general when incumbent Attorney General Greg Abbott, who hired Cruz as solicitor general, decided to run for reelection.[17]

At Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Cruz represented Pfizer in a lawsuit brought by a group of public hospitals and community health centers, who accused Pfizer of overcharging.[74] Linglong Tire was found guilty of marketing versions of tires that were based on blueprints stolen by a former employee of a Florida businessman and ordered to pay $26 million to the Floridian. Cruz worked on the Chinese company's appellant brief. The appeals court denied the appeal and affirmed the jury's award.[75] Cruz represented drug manufacturer B. Braun before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit after the company was found guilty of wrongfully discharging a former employee. Cruz asserted that she had failed to prove that B. Braun had directed her to violate the law and that she had not presented sufficient evidence that her refusal to violate the law was why she had been fired. The appeals court rejected Cruz's argument and affirmed the $880,000 award.[75] Cruz represented Toyota in an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in a statute of limitations case, where a judge wanted to investigate Toyota for contempt after a former Toyota in-house lawyer accused Toyota of unlawfully withholding documents in a product liability case.[76] Cruz unsuccessfully argued the judge's jurisdiction expired 30 days after the case was dismissed following an out-of-court settlement, but later won a second appeal using the same argument.[77]

Cruz defended two record-setting $54-million personal injury awards in New Mexico at the appellate level, including one that a lower court had thrown out.[78] He represented a mentally disabled man who was allegedly raped by an employee of the facility where he lived, and the family of a 78-year-old resident of an Albuquerque nursing home who died of internal bleeding.[78][79] The settlements were sealed in both cases.[78][79]

U.S. Senate

Elections

2012

Main article: 2012 United States Senate election in Texas
 
Final results by county in 2012:
  Ted Cruz
  •   >90%
  •   80–90%
  •   70–80%
  •   60–70%
  •   50–60%
  •   40–50%
  •   80–90%
  •   70–80%
  •   60–70%
  •   50–60%
  •   40–50%

Cruz ran as a Tea Party candidate in the 2012 Republican primary,[80][81][82] and The Washington Post called his victory "the biggest upset of 2012 ... a true grassroots victory against very long odds".[83]

On January 19, 2011, after U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she would not seek reelection, Cruz launched his campaign via a blogger conference call.[84] In the Republican primary, he ran against sitting Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Cruz was endorsed first by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin[85] and then by the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative political action committee;[86] the FreedomWorks for America super PAC;[87] nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin;[88] Tea Party Express;[89] Young Conservatives of Texas;[90] and U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint,[91] Mike Lee,[92] Rand Paul[93] and Pat Toomey.[94] He was also endorsed by former Texas Congressman Ron Paul,[95] George P. Bush,[53] and former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.[96] Former Attorney General Ed Meese served as national chairman of Cruz's campaign.[53]

Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination by a 14-point margin over Dewhurst, support for Dewhurst having plummeted while Cruz's vote total dramatically increased from the first round.[97] Cruz won despite being outspent by Dewhurst, who held a statewide elected office,[98] $19 million to $7 million.[98][99]

In the November 6 general election, Cruz faced Democratic nominee Paul Sadler, an attorney and a former state representative from Henderson, Texas. Cruz won with 4.5 million votes (56.4%) to Sadler's 3.2 million (40.6%). Two minor candidates garnered the remaining 3% of the vote.[100] According to a poll by Cruz's pollster Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research, Cruz received 40% of the Hispanic vote, outperforming Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney among Hispanics in Texas.[101][102]

After Time magazine reported that Cruz might have violated ethics rules by failing to publicly disclose his financial relationship with Caribbean Equity Partners Investment Holdings during the 2012 campaign, he said his failure to disclose the connection was inadvertent.[103]

In January 2016, The New York Times reported that Cruz and his wife had taken out nearly $1 million in low-interest loans from Goldman Sachs (where she worked) and Citibank, and failed to report them on Federal Election Commission disclosure statements as required by law.[104] Cruz disclosed the loans on his Senate financial disclosure forms in July 2012, but not on the FEC form.[105] There is no indication that Cruz's wife had any role in providing any of the loans, or that the banks did anything wrong.[105] The loans were largely repaid by later campaign fundraising. A spokesperson for Cruz said his failure to report the loans to the FEC was "inadvertent" and that he would file supplementary paperwork.[104] But Cruz intentionally missed the deadline for repayment in order to challenge the law that only $250,000 in personal loans can be repaid with money raised after an election. In May 2022, the Supreme Court in FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate sided with Cruz, allowing him to ask donors to help repay $555,000 he loaned to his campaigns: $545,000 he loaned to his 2012 campaign, plus $10,000 he loaned to his 2018 campaign that was over the existing limit of $250,000.[106][107]

 
Cruz in 2012 with his predecessor-to-be (Sen. Hutchison at right) and his future fellow senator from Texas (Sen. Cornyn at left)

2018

Main article: 2018 United States Senate election in Texas
 
Final results by county in 2018:
  Ted Cruz
  •   >90%
  •   80–90%
  •   70–80%
  •   60–70%
  •   50–60%
  •   70–80%
  •   60–70%
  •   50–60%
  •   40–50%

Cruz ran for reelection to a second term in 2018.[108] The primary elections for both parties were held on March 6, 2018,[109] and he easily won the Republican nomination with over 80% of the vote.

Cruz faced the Democratic nominee, U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke, in the general election.[110] The contest was unusually competitive for an election in Texas, with most polls showing Cruz only slightly ahead. The race received significant media attention[111] and became the most expensive U.S. Senate election in history up to that point[112] (until the 2020–21 Georgia special election between incumbent Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock). On November 6, 2018, Cruz defeated O'Rourke by a slim margin, 50.9% to 48.3%.[113]

Legislation

 
Cruz presents a U.S. flag to World War II veteran Richard Arvin Overton during opening ceremony for outpatient clinic in Austin on August 22, 2013.

As of November 2018, Cruz has sponsored 105 bills of his own, including:[114]

  • S.177, a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the health-care related provisions of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, introduced January 29, 2013
  • S.505, a bill to prohibit the use of drones to kill citizens of the United States within the United States, introduced March 7, 2013
  • S.729 and S. 730, bills to investigate and prosecute felons and fugitives who illegally purchase firearms, and to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms through straw purchases and trafficking, introduced March 15, 2013
  • S.1336, a bill to permit States to require proof of citizenship for registering to vote in federal elections, introduced July 17, 2013
  • S.2170, a bill to increase coal, natural gas, and crude oil exports, to approve the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, to expand oil drilling offshore, onshore, in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, and in Indian reservations, to give states the sole power of regulating hydraulic fracturing, to repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard, to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases, to require the EPA to assess how new regulations will affect employment, and to earmark natural resource revenue to paying off the federal government's debt, introduced March 27, 2014
  • S.2415, a bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to eliminate all limits on direct campaign contributions to candidates for public office, introduced June 3, 2014

Government shutdown of 2013

 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Ted Cruz's Obamacare filibuster

Cruz had a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown.[115][116][117][118][119] Cruz gave a 21-hour Senate speech in an effort to hold up a federal budget bill and thereby defund the Affordable Care Act.[118][120][121] Cruz persuaded the House of Representatives and House Speaker John Boehner to include an ACA defunding provision in the bill.[119] In the U.S. Senate, former Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked the filibuster attempt because only 18 Republican senators supported the filibuster.[119] During the filibuster he read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.[122] To supporters, the move "signaled the depth of Cruz's commitment to rein in government".[118] This move was extremely popular among Cruz supporters, with Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government naming Cruz "2013 Person of the Year" in an op-ed in The Hill, primarily for his filibuster against the Affordable Care Act.[123] Cruz was also named "2013 Man of the Year" by conservative publications TheBlaze,[124] and The American Spectator,[125] "2013 Conservative of the Year" by Townhall,[126] and "2013 Statesman of the Year" by the Republican Party of Sarasota County, Florida.[127][128] He was a finalist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2013.[129] To critics, including some Republican colleagues[119] such as Senator Lindsey Graham, the move was ineffective.[118]

Cruz has consistently denied any involvement in the 2013 government shutdown, even though he cast several votes to prolong it and was blamed by many within his own party for prompting it.[130][131]

S. 2195

Main article: Public Law 113-100

On April 1, 2014, Cruz introduced S. 2195, a bill that would allow the president of the United States to deny visas to any ambassador to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage or terrorist activity against the United States or its allies and may pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.[132] The bill was written in response to Iran's choice of Hamid Aboutalebi as its ambassador to the UN.[133] Aboutalebi was involved in the Iran hostage crisis, in which of a number of American diplomats from the Embassy of the United States, Tehran were held captive in 1979.[133][134][135]

Under the headline "A bipartisan message to Iran", Cruz thanked President Barack Obama for signing S. 2195 into law. The letter, published in the magazine Politico on April 18, 2014, starts with "Thanks to President Obama for joining a unanimous Congress and signing S. 2195 into law". Cruz also thanked senators from both political parties for "swiftly passing this legislation and sending it to the White House".[136][137][138]

Committee assignments

In his first two years in the Senate, Cruz attended 17 of 50 public Armed Services Committee hearings, 3 of 25 Commerce Committee hearings, and 4 of the 12 Judiciary Committee hearings, and he missed 21 of 135 roll call votes during the first three months of 2015.[139]

Current

 
Cruz with Venezuelan Chargé d'Affaires Carlos Vecchio

Previous

Comments on President Obama

In a November 2014 Senate speech, Cruz accused President Obama of being "openly desirous to destroy the Constitution and this Republic".[141] In the same speech, Cruz invoked the speeches of the ancient Roman senator Cicero against Catiline to denounce Obama's planned executive actions on immigration reform.[141] Classics Professor Jesse Weiner, writing in The Atlantic, said that Cruz's analogy was "deeply disquieting" because "In casting Obama in the role of Catiline, Cruz unsubtly suggests that the sitting president was not lawfully elected and is the perpetrator of a violent insurrection to overthrow the government ... In effect, he accuses the president of high treason. Regardless of one's views on immigration reform and the Obama administration at large, this is dangerous rhetoric."[141]

Cruz has repeatedly said that the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran "will make the Obama administration the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism".[142] In response, Obama called Cruz's statements an example of "outrageous attacks" from Republican critics that crossed the line of responsible discourse: "We've had a sitting senator, who also happens to be running for President, suggest that I'm the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it's not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now."[142] Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also criticized Cruz's remarks, writing that although he, too, opposed the Iran agreement, Cruz's statement connecting Obama to terrorism was "way over the line" and "hurts the cause".[143][144]

After the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Cruz said that the winner of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, rather than Obama, should appoint a new Justice.[145] In June 2016, Cruz blamed the Obama administration for the Orlando nightclub shooting, reasoning that it did not track the perpetrator Omar Mateen properly while he was on the terrorist watch-list.[146] Following the terrorist attack on Nice, France, Cruz said in a statement that the country was at risk as a result of the Obama administration having a "willful blindness" to radical Islamists.[147] With the death of Fidel Castro in November, Cruz charged Obama with celebrating and lionizing Castro in public statements he made addressing the death.[148] On December 28, after Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech defending the U.S.'s decision to allow a U.N. resolution to pass that condemned Israeli settlements "on land meant to be part of a future Palestinian state", Cruz denounced the speech as "disgraceful", and said that history would remember Obama and Kerry as "relentless enemies of Israel". Cruz also accused the Obama administration of having a "radical anti-Israel agenda".[149]

Relationship with Donald Trump

 
Cruz and then-President Donald Trump in 2019

Cruz was one of Donald Trump's most vocal critics during the 2016 presidential campaign, with the two often exchanging heated comments directed at each other, and Cruz's family.[150] But he eventually became an important ally of Trump's in the Senate.[151][152]

Cruz said to journalists of Donald Trump: "I wake up every day and laugh at the latest thing Donald has tweeted, because he’s losing it. We need a commander in chief, not a Twitterer in chief. We need someone with judgment and the temperament to keep this country safe."[153]

In late January 2017, Cruz praised Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch as "brilliant and immensely talented" in a written statement.[154] On February 23, while speaking at the 2017 CPAC, Cruz showed interest in Trump's nomination of a young justice in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas.[155] On March 1, he called Trump's joint address to Congress the previous day "positive" and "unifying".[156] Cruz said that during his visit to the Mar-a-Lago estate on March 18, he spoke with affiliates of Trump while negotiating the American Health Care Act.[157] On April 6, shortly after the Shayrat missile strike, he released a statement displaying his interest in having Trump appeal to Congress to take "military action in Syria" to prevent Islamic terrorists from acquiring weapons stored in Syria.[158]

In April 2018, in the copy accompanying Trump's entry on the Time 100 most influential people of 2017, Cruz wrote, "President Trump is doing what he was elected to do: disrupt the status quo."[159] Cruz's authorship was criticized by Charles Pierce of Esquire,[160] Jay Willis of GQ,[161] and CNN's Chris Cillizza.[159]

Friction with fellow Republican members of Congress

Cruz has used harsh rhetoric against fellow Republican politicians, and his relationships with various Republican members of Congress have been strained.[162][163] In 2013, he called Republicans he considered insufficiently resistant to Obama's proposals a "surrender caucus".[162] He also called fellow Republicans "squishes" on gun-control issues during a Tea Party rally.[162] Cruz's role in the United States federal government shutdown of 2013 in particular attracted criticism from a number of Republican colleagues.[163] Republican Senator John McCain was reported to have particularly disliked Cruz; in a Senate floor speech in 2013, McCain denounced Cruz's reference to Nazis when discussing the Affordable Care Act.[163] In March 2013, McCain also called Cruz and others "wacko birds" whose beliefs are not "reflective of the views of the majority of Republicans".[163] During the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, John Boehner described Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh";[164] in an interview, Lindsey Graham said, "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."[165]

In a heated Senate floor speech in July 2015, Cruz accused Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of telling "a flat-out lie" over his intentions to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which Cruz opposes. "What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again was a simple lie", Cruz said.[166] His "incendiary outburst" was "unusual in the cordial atmosphere of the Senate", according to Reuters.[166][167] In the same speech, Cruz assailed the "Republican majority in both houses of Congresses" for what he called an insufficiently conservative record.[167] His speech, and especially his accusation against McConnell, was condemned by various senior Republican senators, with McCain saying that the speech was "outside the realm of Senate behavior" and "a very wrong thing to do".[168] Orrin Hatch expressed a similar opinion: "I don't condone the use of that kind of language against another senator unless they can show definitive proof that there was a lie ... And I know the leader didn't lie."[169] Cruz alleged that McConnell scheduled a vote on the Ex-Im Bank as part of a deal to persuade Democrats like Maria Cantwell to stop blocking a trade bill; McConnell denied there was any "deal", and that denial was what Cruz called a "lie". Hatch said McConnell did pledge to help Cantwell get a vote on the Ex-Im Bank.[170]

Among Cruz's few close allies in the Senate is Mike Lee of Utah.[171][172] Cruz has expressed pride in his reputation for having few allies, saying in June 2015 that he has been vilified for fighting "the Washington cartel".[173]

When Boehner resigned from the House in September 2015, Cruz expressed his concern that before resigning Boehner might have "cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of its tenure".[174] The next month, the budget agreement passed in the House by a vote of 266 to 187, with unanimous support from Democrats and Boehner, lifting the debt ceiling through March 2017. Cruz called the agreement "complete and utter surrender".[175]

Cruz is one of the Senate Republicans in favor of the "nuclear option", "to speed up consideration of President Trump's nominees". Changing the Senate's rules to a simple majority vote would "ensure a quicker pace on Trump's court picks".[176]

U.S. Supreme Court

In September 2020, Trump included Cruz on a shortlist, alongside fellow Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, for possible appointment to the Supreme Court. Cruz declined consideration for the position.[177]

2020 presidential election

Cruz backed a failed appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court attempting to overturn or nullify the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania filed by U.S. Representative Mike Kelly, which argued that the Pennsylvania Constitution requires in-person voting except in narrow and defined circumstances; the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had already rejected this argument.[178][179][180] The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case or issue an injunction and Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes were cast for Joe Biden.[181] Cruz later led an effort by a group of Republican senators to refuse to count Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes,[182][183] citing baseless allegations of fraud.[184]

Electoral College vote count and storming of the United States Capitol

Main articles: 2021 United States Electoral College vote count and 2021 storming of the United States Capitol

As part of the attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a suit with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to have election results in four states nullified. Cruz, who had previously argued nine cases before the Supreme Court, agreed to Trump's request to argue the Paxton suit should it come before the Court, though it did not. Cruz also garnered the support of ten other senators for a plan by his decades-long friend, Trump attorney John Eastman, to delay the January 6 electoral vote certification for ten days to allow Republican legislatures in six key states Biden had won to consider submitting slates of Trump electors, based on false allegations of widespread voting fraud. Cruz said he was he was "leading the charge" to prevent Biden's certification as president.[185][186]

On January 6, 2021, during the debate about whether Congress should accept Arizona's electoral votes, Cruz said that 39% of Americans believed the 2020 presidential election was rigged, but that "I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election".[187] Some observers think Cruz knew claims about fraud in the election were inaccurate and that this speech and his earlier statements were attempts to mislead for political gain.[187] There are also concerns that he misrepresented the percentage of those concerned about rigging, with the correct number being 28%.[188][189]

Congress's counting of the Electoral College votes was interrupted by an insurrectionist mob that stormed the United States Capitol after a rally near the White House. The attack resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer.[190]

When Congress reconvened that evening to continue the count, Cruz voted to object to Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes.[191] The Senate rejected these objections by 93–6 and 92–7, respectively.[192] The Texas Democratic Party called on Cruz to resign, saying that his efforts to block Biden's lawful victory empowered the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol.[193] The Texas Democratic Party also called on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an official investigation into Cruz for inciting sedition and treason.[194][195][196] The Houston Chronicle called for Cruz to resign.[197] The San Antonio Express News called for Cruz to be expelled from the Senate.[198] Thousands of lawyers and law students called for him to be disbarred for inciting the insurrection.[199] President-elect Biden and Republican senator Pat Toomey both said Cruz was complicit in the "big lie" of Trump's allegations of voter fraud.[200] Republican operative Chad Sweet, the chair of Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign, denounced Cruz for "assault on our democracy."[201] Several corporations halted donations to Cruz and other Republicans who voted to overturn the election based on Trump's false claims.[202][203][3] Lauren Blair Bianchi, Cruz's communications director, resigned.[204]

On May 28, 2021, Cruz voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the riot.[205] On the eve of the anniversary of the attack, he was recorded on video calling it a "violent terrorist attack", which drew sharp criticism from Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his program that night. Cruz appeared on Carlson's program the next night to apologize for that comment as "frankly dumb" and "sloppy." The next day CNN reported that Cruz had characterized the attack as terrorism at least 17 times during the preceding year.[206][207][208] Despite his attempts to downplay the incident, Cruz was widely condemned by pro-Trump Republicans—especially Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene[209]—for his comments.

Cancún controversy

See also: 2021 Texas power crisis

In February 2021, during a historic winter storm, up to 4.3 million Texas residents were left without power and millions of others without drinking water, including Cruz and his family. In the middle of the storm, Cruz and his family were spotted on a plane heading to Cancún, Mexico, where they planned to stay at the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel and escape their home, which Heidi Cruz called in a text message "FREEZING".[210][211][212] Cruz requested that the Houston police escort him and his family through the airport.[213]

Cruz left the family poodle Snowflake alone inside the house without heat; reporters saw the dog through the window of the front door of the dark and empty house.[214] Later, a self-identified security guard told a reporter he was caring for the dog.[215]

Cruz's political allies and rivals condemned him for leaving Texas during a crisis and traveling internationally during the COVID-19 pandemic.[210] Cruz initially said he was taking his daughters on a weeklong vacation from school at their request, in an attempt to be a "good dad".[216] Later that day, he returned to Texas, after allowing his family to stay in Mexico, saying that the vacation was a mistake.[217] Protesters calling for his resignation greeted him in front of his house upon his return.[218] After returning from Cancún, Cruz volunteered in Houston to help with recovery efforts.[219]

2016 presidential campaign

Main article: Ted Cruz 2016 presidential campaign
Further information: 2016 United States presidential election and 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries
 
Cruz speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland

As early as 2013, Cruz was widely expected to run for the presidency in 2016.[220][221][222] On March 14, 2013, he gave the keynote speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC.[223] He tied for 7th place in the 2013 CPAC straw poll on March 16, winning 4% of the votes cast.[224] In October 2013, Cruz won the Values Voter Summit presidential straw poll with 42% of the vote.[225] Cruz finished first in two presidential straw polls conducted in 2014 with 30.33% of the vote at the Republican Leadership Conference[226] and 43% of the vote at the Republican Party of Texas state convention.[227]

Cruz did speaking events in mid-2013 across Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, all early primary states, leading to further speculation that he was laying the groundwork for a 2016 bid.[228] Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin described Cruz as the first potential presidential candidate to emphasize originalism as a major national issue.[50]

On April 12, 2014, Cruz spoke at the Freedom Summit, an event organized by Americans for Prosperity and Citizens United.[229] The event was attended by several potential presidential candidates.[230] In his speech, Cruz mentioned that Latinos, young people and single mothers are the people most affected by the recession, and that the Republican Party should make outreach efforts to these constituents. He also said that the words "growth and opportunity" should be tattooed on the hands of every Republican politician.[229]

Cruz delivered one of many State of the Union responses in January 2015.[231]

On March 23, 2015, Cruz started his 2016 presidential campaign for the Republican primaries and caucuses, in a morning speech delivered at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.[232] Also, at the same hour, he posted on his Twitter page: "I'm running for President and I hope to earn your support!"[233] He was the first major Republican presidential candidate for the 2016 campaign.[234][235] During the primary campaign, his base of support was mainly among social conservatives, though he had crossover appeal to other factions within his party, including in particular libertarian conservatives.[236][237]

HarperCollins published Cruz's book A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America on June 30, 2015.[238] The book reached the bestseller list of several organizations in its first week of release.[239][240]

Primary wins

 
Ted Cruz in Nashua, New Hampshire, on April 17, 2015

In the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Cruz received over 7.8 million votes,[241][242] won 12 states, and earned 559 delegates.[243] He raised nearly $92 million, a record for a Republican primary candidate, much of it from small online donors. The Cruz campaign had more than 325,000 volunteers.[244]

On February 1, 2016, Cruz won the Iowa caucuses.[245] The Iowa win made him the first Hispanic to win either a presidential primary election or caucus.[245][246][247] He received 28% of the vote.[247] On February 10, Cruz placed third in the New Hampshire primary, with about 12% of the vote.[248] On February 21, he placed third in the South Carolina Republican primary with about 22.3% of the vote.[249]

On March 1, 2016, Super Tuesday, Cruz won Texas by 17%, along with Alaska and Oklahoma, providing him with four state primary victories total.[250] In the Texas primary, he received the most votes in all but six of the state's 254 counties.[251] On March 5, Cruz won the Kansas and Maine caucuses, giving him six statewide wins.[252][253][254]

Cruz won his widest margin up to that point in Kansas, where he beat front-runner Donald Trump by 25 points.[255] With his victories over Trump in Texas, Kansas, and Maine, he established himself as the candidate with the best opportunity to defeat Trump, the leading contender for the nomination.[256][257]

On March 8, 2016, Cruz won the Idaho primary with 45% of vote—defeating Trump by 17% and earning his seventh statewide victory.[258] He placed second in Michigan, Mississippi, and Hawaii.[258] On March 12, Cruz won the Wyoming county conventions with 67% of the vote and 9 delegates, giving him his eighth statewide win.[259] On March 22, Cruz won the Utah Caucus with 69.2% of the vote, versus John Kasich with 16.8% and Trump with 14%.[260] Because he surpassed the 50% winner-take-all threshold, he won all 40 of Utah's delegates. This win was his ninth. On April 3, North Dakota elected a slate of delegates dominated by pro-Cruz delegates. Cruz received the support of the majority of the delegates.[261]

On April 6, 2016, Cruz won the Wisconsin primary with 48.2% of the vote to Trump's 35.1%. It was Cruz's tenth statewide win. He won 36 of the 42 delegates available in Wisconsin. Trump received the other six. On April 2 and 7–9, Cruz swept the Colorado congressional district and state conventions, taking all 34 delegates.[262][263][264][265] This gave Cruz his 11th state win. On April 16, Cruz won all 14 of Wyoming's at-large delegates in the state convention. This secured the majority of state delegates, giving Cruz his 12th state win.[266] On April 27, he said that, if he were selected as the party's nominee, he would choose former CEO of HP and fellow 2016 Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his vice-presidential running mate.[267] Shortly after losing overwhelmingly to Trump in the Indiana primary on May 3, Cruz suspended his campaign.[268]

Citizenship

Main article: Ted Cruz 2016 presidential campaign § Eligibility
Further information: Natural-born-citizen clause (United States)

Cruz has said that when he was a child, his mother told him that she would have to formally request Canadian citizenship for him, so he and his family had always assumed he was not a Canadian citizen.[269] In August 2013, after the Dallas Morning News pointed out that he had dual Canadian-American citizenship,[270][271] he applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada on May 14, 2014.[269][272]

Several lawsuits and ballot challenges asserting that Cruz was ineligible to become U.S. president were filed at the time.[273][274][275][276][277][278][279] None were successful, and in February 2016, the Illinois Board of Elections ruled in Cruz's favor, stating, "The candidate is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in Canada to his mother who was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth."[280]

After candidacy

 
Cruz at the 2016 Republican National Convention, July 20, 2016

Shortly after the campaign's end, Cruz indicated that he would restart the bid if successful in the Nebraska primary,[281] which Trump later won.[282]

In the months following, several publications noted that Cruz still had not endorsed Trump,[283][284] Cruz explaining in June that he was "watching and assessing" to determine if he would support him in the forthcoming general election.[285] On July 7, after a meeting with Trump, he confirmed that he would speak at the 2016 Republican National Convention.[286]

In his speech on July 20, the third day of the convention, Cruz congratulated Trump but did not endorse him. He instead told listeners to "vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution". The speech was met with boos and a negative reception among the crowd.[287] The following day at the Texas Republican delegation breakfast, Cruz defended his choice to not endorse Trump: "I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father. That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I'm going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, 'Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.'"[288][289] On September 23, 2016, he publicly endorsed Trump for president.[290]

On October 10, after the 2005 audio recording of Trump was released and several Republicans retracted their endorsements, Cruz reaffirmed his support, calling Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton "manifestly unfit to be president".[291] On November 15, he met with President-elect Trump at Trump Tower in New York City. It had been reported that Trump was considering Cruz for the position of U.S. Attorney General, but the position went to Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.[292] On November 28, in light of Trump showing a softer tone on his campaign promises, Cruz warned that justified backlash could ensue if he strayed from them.[293]

Cruz was backed by the billionaire Mercer family, including Robert and his daughter Rebekah.[294]

Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Ted Cruz

Cruz has been characterized as staunchly conservative, "radical right", a religious conservative, and anti-establishmentarian.[81][295][296][297]

Communism

Cruz is a critic of the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, saying on Fox News in December 2014 that the thaw in relations was a "manifestation of the failures of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy" that "will be remembered as a tragic mistake".[298]

In July 2018, Cruz spoke at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Asia. He said, "It is a pleasure to be here and stand in solidarity for the men and women across this globe who have been persecuted by communists... We must stand united, in shining light, in highlighting heroism, in highlighting courage, in speaking out for those like my family, like so many millions across the globe who've seen the jackboot of communism firsthand."[299]

Crime, guns, and drug policy

Cruz has called for an end to "overcriminalization, harsh mandatory minimum sentences, and the demise of jury trials".[300] He supports the death penalty.[301] In his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz frequently mentioned his role as counsel for the State of Texas in Medellín v. Texas, a 2008 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that Texas has the right to ignore an order from the International Court of Justice directing the U.S. to review the convictions and sentences of dozens of Mexican nationals on death row.[302] He has called Medellín the most important case of his tenure as Texas solicitor general.[302]

Cruz is a gun rights supporter,[303] and opposes expanding gun control regulations.[304]

In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt discussing the attack that killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Cruz said that "the simple and undeniable fact is the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats", and claimed that Democrats are "soft on crime" because "convicted felons tend to vote Democratic."[305]

In August 2015, in the wake of the ambush death of a Texas police officer who was gunned down while filling up at a gas station, Cruz said that police are "feeling the assault from the President, from the top on down, as we see—whether it's in Ferguson or Baltimore, the response from senior officials, the President or the Attorney General, is to vilify law enforcement. That's wrong. It's fundamentally wrong. It's endangering all of our safety and security."[306]

Cruz met with gun control advocates Alyssa Milano and Fred Guttenberg to discuss gun violence in the United States. Guttenberg said this was "a really important day".[307]

In May 2022, after the Robb Elementary School shooting, Cruz blamed mass shootings on declining church attendance, violent video games, prescription drugs, cyberbullying, social isolation, and other societal factors.[308]

 
Cruz and President Donald Trump, after signing the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017

Cruz opposes legalizing cannabis, but believes it should be decided at the state level.[309] After Colorado legalized cannabis, he said, "If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road, that's their prerogative. I personally don't agree with it, but that's their right."[310]

Economy

Cruz has been described by the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies as a "free trader"[311] and as a "free-trade advocate" by The Wall Street Journal.[312] In 2013, he proposed the abolition of the IRS and the implementation of a flat tax "where the average American can fill out taxes on a postcard".[313] Cruz is "adamantly opposed to a higher minimum wage".[314]

Cruz wants to decrease the size of the government significantly. In addition to eliminating the IRS as described above, he has promised to eliminate four other cabinet-level agencies: the Department of Energy, Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and Department of Housing and Urban Development.[315]

Cruz was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.[316]

Education

Cruz is a proponent of school choice[317] and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative.[318]

Energy and environment

Cruz rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[319][320] In March 2015, he said that some people are "global warming alarmists" and, citing satellite temperature measurements, said, contrary to NASA's analysis, that there had been no significant warming in 18 years.[320][321][322]

Cruz voted against the Water Resources Development Act of 2013 that would have created the National Endowment for the Oceans and authorized more than $26 billion in projects to be built by the Army Corps of Engineers, at least $16 billion of which would have come from federal taxpayers.[323][324] He voted against the bill because it neglected "to reduce a substantial backlog of projects, to the detriment of projects with national implications, such as the Sabine–Neches Waterway".[325] Cruz said the Corps' responsibilities were expanded without providing adequate measures for state participation.[325] Proponents of the bill argued that it would provide steady funding to support research and restoration projects, funded primarily by dedicating 12.5% of revenues from offshore energy development, including oil, gas, and renewable energy, through offshore lease sales and production based royalty payments, distributed through a competitive grant program.[326]

In 2017, Cruz was one of 22 senators to sign a letter[327] addressed to Trump urging him to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. According to OpenSecrets, Cruz has received more than $2.5 million in campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal interests since 2012.[328] He has a lifetime score of 3% on the National Environmental Scorecard of the League of Conservation Voters.[329]

Cruz is a supporter of TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline,[330] and following the Republican senate whip, was a cosponsor of legislation in support of the pipeline.[331]

Federal Reserve

In a 2014 opinion editorial in USA Today, Cruz wrote that auditing the Federal Reserve System was a top Republican priority in 2015 and that he supported legislation that would allow the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen, whose confirmation Cruz tried to prevent, said in her confirmation hearing that she opposed any audit of the Federal Reserve and that "for 50 years Congress has recognized that there should be an exception to GAO ability to audit the Fed to avoid any political interference in monetary policy."[332][333]

Foreign affairs

 
Cruz attended the opening of the US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May 2018.

In 2015, Cruz voted for the USA Freedom Act, which reauthorized the USA Patriot Act but reformed some of its provisions.[334][335]

Cruz has been an adamant opponent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the U.S. and other world powers, calling it "catastrophic" and "disastrous".[336][337]

In 2013, Cruz said that the U.S. had no "dog in the fight" during the Syrian Civil War and that its armed forces should not serve as "al-Qaeda's air force".[338] In 2014, he criticized the Obama administration: "The president's foreign policy team utterly missed the threat of ISIS, indeed, was working to arm Syrian rebels that were fighting side by side with ISIS", calling ISIS "the face of evil". In a statement opposing U.S. intervention for regime change in Syria, Cruz said, "If President Obama and Hillary Clinton and Sen. Rubio succeed in toppling [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, the result will be the radical Islamic terrorists will take over Syria, that Syria will be controlled by ISIS, and that is materially worse for U.S. national security interests."[339]

In September 2016, Cruz backed the Obama administration's plan to sell more than $1.15 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia.[340]

In early January 2017, Cruz, Texas governor Greg Abbott and some others met with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen. Cruz criticized the People's Republic of China after it reportedly made a statement asking members of Congress not to meet with Tsai.[341][342][343]

On January 5, 2017, Cruz voted in favor of a House resolution condemning UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law.[344]

In June 2017, Cruz co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government.[345][346]

 
Cruz with President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2019

In August 2018, Cruz and 16 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China's Xinjiang region.[347] They wrote, "The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in 'political reeducation' centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response."[348]

On December 18, 2018, Cruz and Senator Tom Cotton put forth a resolution in the U.S. Senate urging the United States to affirm Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.[349]

Cruz has called the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline a threat to the security of Europe and the U.S. In December 2019 he and Senator Ron Johnson wrote a letter to Edward Heerema, the owner of the offshore pipe layer Allseas, to warn him of sanctions if Allseas did not suspend its work on the pipeline, which would deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.[350] A few days later Allseas suspended the work.[351] In December 2020, the Russian pipelaying ship Akademik Cherskiy continued pipelaying.[352] In January, another pipelayer, Fortuna, joined forces with the Akademik Cherskiy to complete the pipeline.[353] On June 4, 2021, Putin announced that the pipelaying for first line of the Nord Stream 2 was fully completed. On June 10, the pipeline's sections were connected.[354] The laying of the second line was completed in September 2021.[355]

A co-sponsor of the resolution to commemorate the Armenian genocide, Cruz said that while Turkey is a NATO ally, "We should never be afraid to tell the truth, and alliances grounded in lies are themselves unsustainable."[356]

American video game company Activision Blizzard punished a Hong Kong-based professional gamer for supporting pro-democracy Hong Kong protests. Cruz accused Blizzard and Apple of censorship.[357] He co-signed a letter to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick that read, "As China amplifies its campaign of intimidation, you and your company must decide whether to look beyond the bottom line and promote American values—like freedom of speech and thought—or to give in to Beijing's demands in order to preserve market access."[358]

Beginning during his time as a Dublin, California, city councilman, Eric Swalwell was targeted by a Chinese woman believed to be a clandestine officer of China's Ministry of State Security. Swalwell's general relationship with a suspected Chinese agent, Christine Fang, has been characterized as problematic, particularly given his high-profile role as a member of the House Intelligence Committee.[359] Cruz tweeted, "More than once, I've said 'screw the Chinese communists'. Little did I know how closely Swalwell was listening."[360]

In October 2021, Cruz posted a tweet that was critical of Australia's Northern Territory's vaccine mandates.[361] Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Michael Gunner's response to the tweet went viral quickly, garnering near universal support from Australians.[362][363][364][365]

In 2022, Cruz sharply criticized the Chinese government for its detention of Houston resident Mark Swidan, who has been held for over ten years. The United Nations and U.S. government consider Swidan wrongfully detained.[366]

Hate crimes

Cruz was one of six Republican senators to vote against expanding the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would allow the U.S. Justice Department to review hate crimes related to COVID-19 and establish an online database.[367][368]

Health care

 
Cruz questions US Customs and Border Protection leaders on COVID-19 preparedness in March 2020.

Cruz was a vocal critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed under President Obama in 2010. During the first year of Trump's presidency, Cruz sponsored legislation to repeal the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, and was part of the group of 13 senators that drafted the unsuccessful 2017 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act replacement proposals of the AHCA.[369][370][371][372]

Hurricane aid

In 2013, Cruz voted against a bill to provide a package of federal aid to the Northern East Coast for recovery from Hurricane Sandy[373] because, he said, the bill was "filled with unrelated pork" and "two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy". The Washington Post disputed this, writing that "the bill was largely aimed at dealing with Sandy, along with relatively minor items to address other or future disasters."[374] The New York Times wrote that "of 23 examples of extraneous spending that a spokesman for Mr. Cruz provided, all but one—$195 million in discretionary funds for the secretary of health and human services—were Sandy-related or sought to mitigate future storms, as the law required."[375]

In 2015, in the wake of severe flooding in Texas, Cruz supported federal aid funding; and in 2017, called for federal intervention as Hurricane Harvey approached the coast of Texas.[376]

Immigration

Cruz took a "hard-line stance" on immigration issues during the 2014 border crisis[377] and opposes comprehensive immigration reform.[50][377] He advocates an increase from 65,000 to 325,000 annually in skilled foreign workers entering the United States using H-1B visas.[378] According to McClatchy, Cruz staked out "hard-right immigration stances" during his 2016 presidential campaign.[379]

Cruz opposes paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children (so-called DREAMers).[380] In February 2018, he was the sole senator to oppose a Republican motion to begin debate on legislation intended to resolve the question of what to do with DREAMers.[381] He has called for the repeal of the clause of the 14th amendment that grants citizenship to those born in the United States.[382] He defends the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents,[383][384] blaming the migrant parents for crossing the U.S. border to seek asylum and claiming that the Obama administration maintained a similar policy.[383][384]

In December 2020, Cruz blocked the Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act, which would give Hong Kongers refugee status, citing the threat of spying by China. He said the law was an attempt by Democrats "to advance their long-standing goals on changing immigration laws".[385]

During a May 2021 Senate Rules Committee hearing, Cruz falsely asserted that House Democrats had "designed" the For The People Act such that it "directs" people "to break the law and register millions of people to vote who are not eligible to vote because they are not United States citizens" and "automatically registers to vote anyone who interacts with the government" regardless of their immigration status. The bill repeatedly states only U.S. citizens would be permitted to register.[386]

Judiciary

 
Ted Cruz and Judge Brett Kavanaugh in July 2018

In March 2016, about seven months before the forthcoming presidential election, Cruz argued the Senate should not consider Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court on the grounds that "this should be a decision for the people. Let the election decide. If the Democrats want to replace this nominee, they need to win the election". In September 2020, less than two months before the next presidential election, Cruz supported an immediate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.[387]

During Donald Trump's presidency, Cruz and fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn contributed to the appointment of multiple conservative judges to federal courts with jurisdiction over Texas.[388][389][390][391]

Military

Cruz has criticized the U.S. military for becoming "emasculated" by its recruiting efforts, comparing those efforts unfavorably to the Russian military's.[392][393] He accused Democratic politicians of trying to transform "the greatest military on earth" into "pansies".[392] He has claimed the military is debilitated and its "ability to project power and obtain air superiority is tragically anemic".[394] Blaming "bloated bureaucracy and social experiments", Cruz has proposed reducing the size of the active duty military while increasing spending.[395]

Net neutrality

Cruz opposes net neutrality—which prevents Internet service providers from deliberately blocking or slowing particular websites—arguing that the Internet economy has flourished in the United States simply because it has remained largely free from government regulation.[396] He has argued that net neutrality is the "Obamacare for the internet".[397][398] Cruz said that the Obama-era implementation of the principle of net neutrality had the "end result" of "less broadband, less innovation, and less freedom for the American consumer".[398] In December 2017, after the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality, he mocked supporters of net neutrality as "snowflakes" who were misled by "online propaganda".[399]

Outsourcing of jobs

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Cruz strongly denounced outsourcing American jobs to other countries, alleging that any politician who allowed it to happen was betraying their constituents. He pinned some of his blame on then-President Obama, saying that Obama had overseen outsourcing for the previous seven years. Cruz's denunciation of Obama was criticized by PolitiFact, which found that the modern pattern of American outsourcing, while prevalent during the Obama years, had started earlier.[400] During the campaign, one of Cruz's promises was to return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. His choice of running mate, Carly Fiorina, was met with pushback due to her record of outsourcing, but he defended her.[401] In 2022, Cruz voted against Bernie Sanders's proposed measure for the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which promised to fund semiconductor manufacturers amid a shortage of their products during the COVID-19 pandemic. The measure would block semiconductor manufacturers funded by the bill from outsourcing their jobs and forbid them to dissuade their employees from forming unions.[402][403]

Social issues

Cruz is strongly anti-abortion, but "would allow the procedure...when a pregnancy endangers the mother's life".[404][405] He is in favor of cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood.[406]

Cruz opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions.[407] In 2013, he said he wanted marriage to be legally defined as only "between one man and one woman",[408] but also said that the legality of same-sex marriage should be left to each state to decide.[409] In 2015, after the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell ruled same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional, he called the decision "the very definition of tyranny",[410] accused the court of judicial activism, and said it was "among the darkest hours of our nation."[411] In 2017, the same day that an audio clip resurfaced of Alabama Judge Roy Moore calling Obergefell "worse" than the 1857 ruling that upheld slavery, Cruz endorsed Moore for U.S. Senate.[412] He reaffirmed his position in 2022 after comments by Justice Clarence Thomas.[413] While speaking to students at a summit for Turning Point USA, an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college and university campuses, Cruz joked that his favored personal pronoun is "kiss my ass".[414]

In July 2022, Cruz issued a press release saying that he supported the repeal of the 1973 Texas anti-sodomy law, writing, "consenting adults should be able to do what they wish in their private sexual activity, and the government has no business in their bedrooms."[415][416]

Cruz compared the vandalism and destruction of monuments and memorials in the United States to the 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban.[417]

Podcast

Cruz and Michael J. Knowles started a podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, on January 21, 2020. The first episodes were summaries of the impeachment hearings of Donald Trump. After the hearings ended the podcast expanded its content to include other topics and interviews, including with Washington politicians such as U.S. Senators Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham, and Mike Lee, Trump administration officials including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and actors Jon Voight and Isaiah Washington.[418]

In October 2022, Verdict with Ted Cruz picked up corporate partner iHeartRadio. The podcast also expanded to three times a week and Ben Ferguson replaced Knowles as co-host.[419]

Books

  • Cruz, Ted (2015). A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America. Broadside Books. ISBN 978-0-06-236561-3.
  • Cruz, Ted (2020). One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History. Regnery. ISBN 978-1-68451-134-1.
  • Cruz, Ted (2022). Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System. Regnery. ISBN 978-1-68451-361-1.
  • Cruz, Ted (2023). Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America. Regnery. ISBN 978-1-68451-362-8.

Personal life

 
Cruz with his wife, Heidi, at a rally in Houston, March 2015

Cruz married Heidi Nelson on May 27, 2001.[420] The couple met when Cruz was working on George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Heidi took leave from her position as head of the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 2016 to support Cruz's run for president.[421] She previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker.[422] Cruz lives with his wife and their two children in River Oaks, Houston.[423][424]

Cruz has joked, "I'm Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist."[425] He is fond of wearing cowboy boots, but he refrained from doing so when arguing before the Rehnquist court.[426]

As of 2018, according to OpenSecrets, Cruz's net worth was more than $3.1 million.[427]

On March 8, 2020, Cruz began self-isolation after contact with a person infected with COVID-19 at the ACU's Conservative Political Action Conference. Staying at his home in Texas,[428] he avoided contact with colleagues and constituents for 14 days. Cruz said he had been advised that the odds of contracting the virus were very low.[429]

In 2023, Cruz cameoed in The Daily Wire comedy film Lady Ballers.[430]

Electoral history

Year Office Type Party Main opponent Party Votes for Cruz Result Ref.
Total % P. ±%
2012 Senator Primary Republican David Dewhurst Republican 480,558 34.16% 2nd N/A Won [431]
Runoff 631,812 56.82% 1st N/A Won [432]
General Paul Sadler Democratic 4,440,137 56.46% 1st -5.23% Won [433]
2016 President Primary Republican Donald Trump Republican 7,822,100 25.08% 2nd N/A Lost
Convention 551 22.3% 2nd N/A
2018 Senator Primary Republican Mary Miller Republican 1,322,724 85.36% 1st +51.2% Won [434]
General Beto O'Rourke Democratic 4,260,553 50.89% 1st -5.57% Won [435]

See also

References

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February 16, 2024
cruz, senator, cruz, redirects, here, other, uses, senator, cruz, disambiguation, rafael, edward, cruz, born, december, 1970, american, politician, attorney, political, commentator, serving, junior, united, states, senator, from, texas, since, 2013, member, re. Senator Cruz redirects here For other uses see Senator Cruz disambiguation Rafael Edward Cruz k r uː z born December 22 1970 is an American politician attorney and political commentator serving as the junior United States senator from Texas since 2013 A member of the Republican Party Cruz was the solicitor general of Texas from 2003 to 2008 Ted CruzOfficial portrait 2019United States Senatorfrom TexasIncumbentAssumed office January 3 2013Serving with John CornynPreceded byKay Bailey HutchisonRanking Member of the Senate Commerce CommitteeIncumbentAssumed office January 3 2023Preceded byRoger Wicker3rd Solicitor General of TexasIn office January 9 2003 May 12 2008Appointed byGreg AbbottPreceded byJulie ParsleySucceeded byJames C HoPersonal detailsBornRafael Edward Cruz 1970 12 22 December 22 1970 age 53 Calgary Alberta CanadaCitizenshipUnited StatesCanada 1970 2014 1 Political partyRepublicanSpouseHeidi Nelson m 2001 wbr Children2Parent s Rafael CruzEleanor Elizabeth DarraghEducationPrinceton University BA Harvard University JD OccupationPoliticianattorneySignatureWebsiteSenate officeTed Cruz s voice source source Ted Cruz commemorates JuneteenthRecorded June 18 2021After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School Cruz pursued a career in politics later working as a policy advisor in the George W Bush administration In 2003 Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to serve as Solicitor General a position he held through 2008 In 2012 Cruz was elected to the U S Senate becoming the first Hispanic American 2 to serve as a U S senator from Texas In the Senate he has taken consistently conservative positions on economic and social policy he played a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown seeking to force Congress and President Barack Obama to defund the Affordable Care Act He was reelected in a close Senate race in 2018 against Democratic candidate Beto O Rourke On March 23 2015 Cruz announced he was running for president Despite having only been a senator for two years he emerged as a serious contender in the Republican primaries The competition for the Republican presidential nomination between Cruz and front runner Donald Trump was heated and characterized by a series of public personal attacks After Trump won the nomination Cruz initially declined to endorse him but he became a staunch supporter of Trump during his presidency After the January 2021 Capitol attack Cruz received widespread political and popular backlash for objecting to the certification of Joe Biden s victory in the 2020 presidential election and giving credence to the false claim that the election was fraudulent 3 Contents 1 Early life and family 1 1 Education 2 Legal career 2 1 Clerkships 2 2 Private practice 2 3 Bush administration 2 4 Texas Solicitor General 2 5 Return to private practice 3 U S Senate 3 1 Elections 3 1 1 2012 3 1 2 2018 3 2 Legislation 3 3 Government shutdown of 2013 3 4 S 2195 3 5 Committee assignments 3 5 1 Current 3 5 2 Previous 3 6 Comments on President Obama 3 7 Relationship with Donald Trump 3 8 Friction with fellow Republican members of Congress 3 9 U S Supreme Court 3 10 2020 presidential election 3 11 Electoral College vote count and storming of the United States Capitol 3 12 Cancun controversy 4 2016 presidential campaign 4 1 Primary wins 4 2 Citizenship 4 3 After candidacy 5 Political positions 5 1 Communism 5 2 Crime guns and drug policy 5 3 Economy 5 4 Education 5 5 Energy and environment 5 6 Federal Reserve 5 7 Foreign affairs 5 8 Hate crimes 5 9 Health care 5 10 Hurricane aid 5 11 Immigration 5 12 Judiciary 5 13 Military 5 14 Net neutrality 5 15 Outsourcing of jobs 5 16 Social issues 6 Podcast 7 Books 8 Personal life 9 Electoral history 10 See also 11 References 12 External linksEarly life and familyRafael Edward Cruz was born on December 22 1970 4 5 at Foothills Medical Centre 6 7 in Calgary Alberta Canada to Eleanor Elizabeth nee Darragh Wilson and Rafael Cruz 8 9 10 11 Cruz s mother was born in Wilmington Delaware She is of three quarters Irish and one quarter Italian descent and earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s 12 13 Cruz s father Rafael was born and raised in Cuba the son of a Canary Islander who immigrated to Cuba as a child 14 As a teenager in the 1950s Rafael Cruz was beaten by agents of Fulgencio Batista for opposing the Batista regime 15 He left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin and obtained political asylum in the United States after his four year student visa expired 16 He earned Canadian citizenship in 1973 6 and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2005 10 17 18 At the time of his birth Ted Cruz s parents had lived in Calgary for three years and were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic data processing firm for oil drilling 10 19 20 21 22 Cruz has said that he is the son of two mathematicians computer programmers 23 In 1974 Cruz s father left the family and moved to Texas 24 Later that year Cruz s parents reconciled and relocated the family to Houston 6 They divorced in 1997 25 Cruz has two older half sisters Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz from his father s first marriage Miriam died in 2011 from a drug overdose 25 26 27 Cruz began going by Ted at age 13 28 Education For junior high school Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston 29 Cruz attended two private high schools Faith West Academy near Katy Texas 30 and Second Baptist High School in Houston from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988 17 31 32 During high school Cruz participated in a Houston based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frederic Bastiat 22 33 After high school Cruz studied public policy at Princeton University 34 4 35 While at Princeton he competed for the American Whig Cliosophic Society s Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U S National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship 36 In 1992 he was named U S National Speaker of the Year and with his debate partner David Panton Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association 36 Cruz and Panton later represented Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship losing in the semifinals to a team from Australia 37 38 39 Princeton s debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz 39 At Princeton Cruz was a member of Colonial Club 40 His 115 page senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers its title Clipping the Wings of Angels The History and Theory Behind the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution was inspired by a passage attributed to James Madison from the 51st essay of the Federalist Papers If angels were to govern men neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect their constituents rights and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all powerful state 12 41 Cruz graduated from Princeton in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude citation needed Cruz then attended Harvard Law School 4 42 where he was a John M Olin Fellow in Law and Economics 43 He was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review 35 Referring to Cruz s time as a student at Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said that Cruz was off the charts brilliant 44 45 46 47 Cruz graduated from Harvard Law in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree magna cum laude citation needed Legal careerClerkships After law school Cruz served as a law clerk for Judge J Michael Luttig of the U S Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1995 to 1996 43 48 and then for Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U S Supreme Court from 1996 to 1997 4 Private practice After his Supreme Court clerkship Cruz worked in private practice as an associate at the law firm Cooper Carvin amp Rosenthal now Cooper amp Kirk PLLC from 1997 to 1998 49 At the firm Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton 50 In 1998 Cruz was briefly one of the attorneys who represented Representative John Boehner during his litigation against Representative Jim McDermott over the alleged leak of an illegal recording of a phone conversation whose participants included Boehner 51 52 Bush administration Cruz joined the George W Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser advising then Governor Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters including civil justice criminal justice constitutional law immigration and government reform 49 During the 2000 Florida presidential recounts he assisted in assembling the Bush legal team devising strategy and drafting pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U S Supreme Court in the case Bush v Gore 43 53 Cruz recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to Bush s legal team 50 After Bush took office Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the United States Department of Justice 4 53 and as the director of policy planning at the Federal Trade Commission 4 44 53 Texas Solicitor General In 2003 Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to be the solicitor general of Texas 48 54 33 43 The office was established in 1999 to handle appeals involving the Texas state government but Abbott hired Cruz with the idea that Cruz would take a leadership role in the United States in articulating a vision of strict constructionism As Texas solicitor general Cruz argued before the U S Supreme Court nine times winning five cases and losing four 50 He authored 70 U S Supreme Court briefs and presented 34 appellate oral arguments 44 48 55 His nine appearances before the Supreme Court are the most by any practicing lawyer in Texas or current member of Congress 56 Cruz has said We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country There was a degree of serendipity in that but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights 56 In 2003 while Cruz was Texas Solicitor General the Texas Attorney General s office declined to defend Texas s sodomy law in Lawrence v Texas in which the U S Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning homosexual sex were unconstitutional 57 In the landmark case District of Columbia v Heller Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states arguing that the Washington D C handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms 55 58 He also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 55 59 nbsp Cruz at the Values Voter Summit in October 2011Cruz successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U S Supreme Court winning 5 4 in Van Orden v Perry 44 43 55 In 2004 Cruz was involved in the high profile case surrounding a challenge to the constitutionality of public schools requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance including the words under God legally a part of the Pledge since 1954 Elk Grove Unified School District v Newdow 44 43 He wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states that argued that the plaintiff a non custodial parent did not have standing to file suit on his daughter s behalf 60 The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz s brief 61 Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U S Supreme Court which was decided 5 4 in his favor in League of United Latin American Citizens v Perry 43 62 In Medellin v Texas Cruz successfully defended Texas against an attempt to reopen the cases of 51 Mexican nationals all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and on death row 44 43 48 55 With the support of the George W Bush administration the petitioners argued that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate 50 63 They based their case on a decision of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case which ruled that by failing to allow access to the Mexican consulate the United States had breached its obligations under the convention 64 Texas won the case in a 6 3 decision the Supreme Court holding that ICJ decisions were not binding in domestic law and that the President had no power to enforce them 50 63 Michael Wayne Haley was arrested for stealing a calculator from Walmart in 1997 65 Because of Haley s previous criminal convictions he was sentenced to 16 1 2 years in prison under the Texas habitual offender law After Haley had exhausted his appeals it became known that Haley s robbery offense occurred three days before one of his other convictions was finalized this raised a question about the applicability of the habitual offender statute in his case As Solicitor General Cruz declined to vacate Haley s sentence saying I think justice is being done because he had a full and fair trial and an opportunity to raise his errors 66 The Supreme Court later remanded the case to lower courts based on Haley s ineffective assistance of counsel claim During oral argument Cruz conceded that Haley had a very strong argument for ineffective assistance of counsel since Haley s attorney failed to recognize the sentencing error and that he would not move to have Haley re incarcerated during the appeal process 66 After remand Haley was re sentenced to time served 67 In 2008 American Lawyer magazine named Cruz one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America 54 68 and The National Law Journal named him one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America 69 70 In 2010 Texas Lawyer named him one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century 71 72 Return to private practice After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008 Cruz joined the Houston office of the Philadelphia based law firm Morgan Lewis amp Bockius often representing corporate clients 12 43 73 At Morgan Lewis he led the firm s U S Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice 73 In 2010 he abandoned a bid for state attorney general when incumbent Attorney General Greg Abbott who hired Cruz as solicitor general decided to run for reelection 17 At Morgan Lewis amp Bockius Cruz represented Pfizer in a lawsuit brought by a group of public hospitals and community health centers who accused Pfizer of overcharging 74 Linglong Tire was found guilty of marketing versions of tires that were based on blueprints stolen by a former employee of a Florida businessman and ordered to pay 26 million to the Floridian Cruz worked on the Chinese company s appellant brief The appeals court denied the appeal and affirmed the jury s award 75 Cruz represented drug manufacturer B Braun before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit after the company was found guilty of wrongfully discharging a former employee Cruz asserted that she had failed to prove that B Braun had directed her to violate the law and that she had not presented sufficient evidence that her refusal to violate the law was why she had been fired The appeals court rejected Cruz s argument and affirmed the 880 000 award 75 Cruz represented Toyota in an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in a statute of limitations case where a judge wanted to investigate Toyota for contempt after a former Toyota in house lawyer accused Toyota of unlawfully withholding documents in a product liability case 76 Cruz unsuccessfully argued the judge s jurisdiction expired 30 days after the case was dismissed following an out of court settlement but later won a second appeal using the same argument 77 Cruz defended two record setting 54 million personal injury awards in New Mexico at the appellate level including one that a lower court had thrown out 78 He represented a mentally disabled man who was allegedly raped by an employee of the facility where he lived and the family of a 78 year old resident of an Albuquerque nursing home who died of internal bleeding 78 79 The settlements were sealed in both cases 78 79 U S SenateElections 2012 Main article 2012 United States Senate election in Texas nbsp Final results by county in 2012 Ted Cruz gt 90 80 90 70 80 60 70 50 60 40 50 Paul Sadler 80 90 70 80 60 70 50 60 40 50 Cruz ran as a Tea Party candidate in the 2012 Republican primary 80 81 82 and The Washington Post called his victory the biggest upset of 2012 a true grassroots victory against very long odds 83 On January 19 2011 after U S Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she would not seek reelection Cruz launched his campaign via a blogger conference call 84 In the Republican primary he ran against sitting Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst Cruz was endorsed first by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin 85 and then by the Club for Growth a fiscally conservative political action committee 86 the FreedomWorks for America super PAC 87 nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin 88 Tea Party Express 89 Young Conservatives of Texas 90 and U S Senators Tom Coburn Jim DeMint 91 Mike Lee 92 Rand Paul 93 and Pat Toomey 94 He was also endorsed by former Texas Congressman Ron Paul 95 George P Bush 53 and former U S senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum 96 Former Attorney General Ed Meese served as national chairman of Cruz s campaign 53 Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination by a 14 point margin over Dewhurst support for Dewhurst having plummeted while Cruz s vote total dramatically increased from the first round 97 Cruz won despite being outspent by Dewhurst who held a statewide elected office 98 19 million to 7 million 98 99 In the November 6 general election Cruz faced Democratic nominee Paul Sadler an attorney and a former state representative from Henderson Texas Cruz won with 4 5 million votes 56 4 to Sadler s 3 2 million 40 6 Two minor candidates garnered the remaining 3 of the vote 100 According to a poll by Cruz s pollster Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research Cruz received 40 of the Hispanic vote outperforming Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney among Hispanics in Texas 101 102 After Time magazine reported that Cruz might have violated ethics rules by failing to publicly disclose his financial relationship with Caribbean Equity Partners Investment Holdings during the 2012 campaign he said his failure to disclose the connection was inadvertent 103 In January 2016 The New York Times reported that Cruz and his wife had taken out nearly 1 million in low interest loans from Goldman Sachs where she worked and Citibank and failed to report them on Federal Election Commission disclosure statements as required by law 104 Cruz disclosed the loans on his Senate financial disclosure forms in July 2012 but not on the FEC form 105 There is no indication that Cruz s wife had any role in providing any of the loans or that the banks did anything wrong 105 The loans were largely repaid by later campaign fundraising A spokesperson for Cruz said his failure to report the loans to the FEC was inadvertent and that he would file supplementary paperwork 104 But Cruz intentionally missed the deadline for repayment in order to challenge the law that only 250 000 in personal loans can be repaid with money raised after an election In May 2022 the Supreme Court in FEC v Ted Cruz for Senate sided with Cruz allowing him to ask donors to help repay 555 000 he loaned to his campaigns 545 000 he loaned to his 2012 campaign plus 10 000 he loaned to his 2018 campaign that was over the existing limit of 250 000 106 107 nbsp Cruz in 2012 with his predecessor to be Sen Hutchison at right and his future fellow senator from Texas Sen Cornyn at left 2018 Main article 2018 United States Senate election in Texas nbsp Final results by county in 2018 Ted Cruz gt 90 80 90 70 80 60 70 50 60 Beto O Rourke 70 80 60 70 50 60 40 50 Cruz ran for reelection to a second term in 2018 108 The primary elections for both parties were held on March 6 2018 109 and he easily won the Republican nomination with over 80 of the vote Cruz faced the Democratic nominee U S Representative Beto O Rourke in the general election 110 The contest was unusually competitive for an election in Texas with most polls showing Cruz only slightly ahead The race received significant media attention 111 and became the most expensive U S Senate election in history up to that point 112 until the 2020 21 Georgia special election between incumbent Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock On November 6 2018 Cruz defeated O Rourke by a slim margin 50 9 to 48 3 113 Legislation nbsp Cruz presents a U S flag to World War II veteran Richard Arvin Overton during opening ceremony for outpatient clinic in Austin on August 22 2013 As of November 2018 Cruz has sponsored 105 bills of his own including 114 S 177 a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the health care related provisions of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 introduced January 29 2013 S 505 a bill to prohibit the use of drones to kill citizens of the United States within the United States introduced March 7 2013 S 729 and S 730 bills to investigate and prosecute felons and fugitives who illegally purchase firearms and to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms through straw purchases and trafficking introduced March 15 2013 S 1336 a bill to permit States to require proof of citizenship for registering to vote in federal elections introduced July 17 2013 S 2170 a bill to increase coal natural gas and crude oil exports to approve the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline to expand oil drilling offshore onshore in the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska and in Indian reservations to give states the sole power of regulating hydraulic fracturing to repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency EPA from regulating greenhouse gases to require the EPA to assess how new regulations will affect employment and to earmark natural resource revenue to paying off the federal government s debt introduced March 27 2014 S 2415 a bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to eliminate all limits on direct campaign contributions to candidates for public office introduced June 3 2014Government shutdown of 2013 nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Ted Cruz s Obamacare filibuster Cruz had a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown 115 116 117 118 119 Cruz gave a 21 hour Senate speech in an effort to hold up a federal budget bill and thereby defund the Affordable Care Act 118 120 121 Cruz persuaded the House of Representatives and House Speaker John Boehner to include an ACA defunding provision in the bill 119 In the U S Senate former Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked the filibuster attempt because only 18 Republican senators supported the filibuster 119 During the filibuster he read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss 122 To supporters the move signaled the depth of Cruz s commitment to rein in government 118 This move was extremely popular among Cruz supporters with Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government naming Cruz 2013 Person of the Year in an op ed in The Hill primarily for his filibuster against the Affordable Care Act 123 Cruz was also named 2013 Man of the Year by conservative publications TheBlaze 124 and The American Spectator 125 2013 Conservative of the Year by Townhall 126 and 2013 Statesman of the Year by the Republican Party of Sarasota County Florida 127 128 He was a finalist for Time magazine s Person of the Year in 2013 129 To critics including some Republican colleagues 119 such as Senator Lindsey Graham the move was ineffective 118 Cruz has consistently denied any involvement in the 2013 government shutdown even though he cast several votes to prolong it and was blamed by many within his own party for prompting it 130 131 S 2195 Main article Public Law 113 100 On April 1 2014 Cruz introduced S 2195 a bill that would allow the president of the United States to deny visas to any ambassador to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage or terrorist activity against the United States or its allies and may pose a threat to U S national security interests 132 The bill was written in response to Iran s choice of Hamid Aboutalebi as its ambassador to the UN 133 Aboutalebi was involved in the Iran hostage crisis in which of a number of American diplomats from the Embassy of the United States Tehran were held captive in 1979 133 134 135 Under the headline A bipartisan message to Iran Cruz thanked President Barack Obama for signing S 2195 into law The letter published in the magazine Politico on April 18 2014 starts with Thanks to President Obama for joining a unanimous Congress and signing S 2195 into law Cruz also thanked senators from both political parties for swiftly passing this legislation and sending it to the White House 136 137 138 Committee assignments In his first two years in the Senate Cruz attended 17 of 50 public Armed Services Committee hearings 3 of 25 Commerce Committee hearings and 4 of the 12 Judiciary Committee hearings and he missed 21 of 135 roll call votes during the first three months of 2015 139 Current nbsp Cruz with Venezuelan Charge d Affaires Carlos VecchioCommittee on Commerce Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation Safety Operations and Innovation Ranking Subcommittee on Communications Media and Broadband Subcommittee on Oceans Fisheries Climate Change and Manufacturing Subcommittee on Space and Science Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy Subcommittee on Near East South Asia Central Asia and Counterterrorism Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management International Operations and Bilateral International Development Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Transnational Crime Civilian Security Democracy Human Rights and Global Women s Issues Committee on Rules and Administration Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism Subcommittee on Federal Courts Oversight Agency Action and Federal Rights Subcommittee on Immigration Citizenship and Border Safety Subcommittee on the Constitution Ranking Joint Economic Committee 140 Previous Committee on Armed Services 2013 2019 Special Committee on Aging 2013 2015 Comments on President Obama In a November 2014 Senate speech Cruz accused President Obama of being openly desirous to destroy the Constitution and this Republic 141 In the same speech Cruz invoked the speeches of the ancient Roman senator Cicero against Catiline to denounce Obama s planned executive actions on immigration reform 141 Classics Professor Jesse Weiner writing in The Atlantic said that Cruz s analogy was deeply disquieting because In casting Obama in the role of Catiline Cruz unsubtly suggests that the sitting president was not lawfully elected and is the perpetrator of a violent insurrection to overthrow the government In effect he accuses the president of high treason Regardless of one s views on immigration reform and the Obama administration at large this is dangerous rhetoric 141 Cruz has repeatedly said that the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran will make the Obama administration the world s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism 142 In response Obama called Cruz s statements an example of outrageous attacks from Republican critics that crossed the line of responsible discourse We ve had a sitting senator who also happens to be running for President suggest that I m the leading state sponsor of terrorism Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr Trump out of the headlines but it s not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now 142 Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also criticized Cruz s remarks writing that although he too opposed the Iran agreement Cruz s statement connecting Obama to terrorism was way over the line and hurts the cause 143 144 After the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia Cruz said that the winner of the 2016 U S presidential election rather than Obama should appoint a new Justice 145 In June 2016 Cruz blamed the Obama administration for the Orlando nightclub shooting reasoning that it did not track the perpetrator Omar Mateen properly while he was on the terrorist watch list 146 Following the terrorist attack on Nice France Cruz said in a statement that the country was at risk as a result of the Obama administration having a willful blindness to radical Islamists 147 With the death of Fidel Castro in November Cruz charged Obama with celebrating and lionizing Castro in public statements he made addressing the death 148 On December 28 after Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech defending the U S s decision to allow a U N resolution to pass that condemned Israeli settlements on land meant to be part of a future Palestinian state Cruz denounced the speech as disgraceful and said that history would remember Obama and Kerry as relentless enemies of Israel Cruz also accused the Obama administration of having a radical anti Israel agenda 149 Relationship with Donald Trump nbsp Cruz and then President Donald Trump in 2019Cruz was one of Donald Trump s most vocal critics during the 2016 presidential campaign with the two often exchanging heated comments directed at each other and Cruz s family 150 But he eventually became an important ally of Trump s in the Senate 151 152 Cruz said to journalists of Donald Trump I wake up every day and laugh at the latest thing Donald has tweeted because he s losing it We need a commander in chief not a Twitterer in chief We need someone with judgment and the temperament to keep this country safe 153 In late January 2017 Cruz praised Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch as brilliant and immensely talented in a written statement 154 On February 23 while speaking at the 2017 CPAC Cruz showed interest in Trump s nomination of a young justice in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas 155 On March 1 he called Trump s joint address to Congress the previous day positive and unifying 156 Cruz said that during his visit to the Mar a Lago estate on March 18 he spoke with affiliates of Trump while negotiating the American Health Care Act 157 On April 6 shortly after the Shayrat missile strike he released a statement displaying his interest in having Trump appeal to Congress to take military action in Syria to prevent Islamic terrorists from acquiring weapons stored in Syria 158 In April 2018 in the copy accompanying Trump s entry on the Time 100 most influential people of 2017 Cruz wrote President Trump is doing what he was elected to do disrupt the status quo 159 Cruz s authorship was criticized by Charles Pierce of Esquire 160 Jay Willis of GQ 161 and CNN s Chris Cillizza 159 Friction with fellow Republican members of Congress Cruz has used harsh rhetoric against fellow Republican politicians and his relationships with various Republican members of Congress have been strained 162 163 In 2013 he called Republicans he considered insufficiently resistant to Obama s proposals a surrender caucus 162 He also called fellow Republicans squishes on gun control issues during a Tea Party rally 162 Cruz s role in the United States federal government shutdown of 2013 in particular attracted criticism from a number of Republican colleagues 163 Republican Senator John McCain was reported to have particularly disliked Cruz in a Senate floor speech in 2013 McCain denounced Cruz s reference to Nazis when discussing the Affordable Care Act 163 In March 2013 McCain also called Cruz and others wacko birds whose beliefs are not reflective of the views of the majority of Republicans 163 During the 2016 Republican presidential primaries John Boehner described Cruz as Lucifer in the flesh 164 in an interview Lindsey Graham said If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate nobody would convict you 165 In a heated Senate floor speech in July 2015 Cruz accused Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of telling a flat out lie over his intentions to reauthorize the Export Import Bank of the United States which Cruz opposes What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator but what he told the press over and over and over again was a simple lie Cruz said 166 His incendiary outburst was unusual in the cordial atmosphere of the Senate according to Reuters 166 167 In the same speech Cruz assailed the Republican majority in both houses of Congresses for what he called an insufficiently conservative record 167 His speech and especially his accusation against McConnell was condemned by various senior Republican senators with McCain saying that the speech was outside the realm of Senate behavior and a very wrong thing to do 168 Orrin Hatch expressed a similar opinion I don t condone the use of that kind of language against another senator unless they can show definitive proof that there was a lie And I know the leader didn t lie 169 Cruz alleged that McConnell scheduled a vote on the Ex Im Bank as part of a deal to persuade Democrats like Maria Cantwell to stop blocking a trade bill McConnell denied there was any deal and that denial was what Cruz called a lie Hatch said McConnell did pledge to help Cantwell get a vote on the Ex Im Bank 170 Among Cruz s few close allies in the Senate is Mike Lee of Utah 171 172 Cruz has expressed pride in his reputation for having few allies saying in June 2015 that he has been vilified for fighting the Washington cartel 173 When Boehner resigned from the House in September 2015 Cruz expressed his concern that before resigning Boehner might have cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of its tenure 174 The next month the budget agreement passed in the House by a vote of 266 to 187 with unanimous support from Democrats and Boehner lifting the debt ceiling through March 2017 Cruz called the agreement complete and utter surrender 175 Cruz is one of the Senate Republicans in favor of the nuclear option to speed up consideration of President Trump s nominees Changing the Senate s rules to a simple majority vote would ensure a quicker pace on Trump s court picks 176 U S Supreme Court In September 2020 Trump included Cruz on a shortlist alongside fellow Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley for possible appointment to the Supreme Court Cruz declined consideration for the position 177 2020 presidential election Cruz backed a failed appeal to the U S Supreme Court attempting to overturn or nullify the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania filed by U S Representative Mike Kelly which argued that the Pennsylvania Constitution requires in person voting except in narrow and defined circumstances the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had already rejected this argument 178 179 180 The U S Supreme Court declined to take up the case or issue an injunction and Pennsylvania s Electoral College votes were cast for Joe Biden 181 Cruz later led an effort by a group of Republican senators to refuse to count Pennsylvania s Electoral College votes 182 183 citing baseless allegations of fraud 184 Electoral College vote count and storming of the United States Capitol Main articles 2021 United States Electoral College vote count and 2021 storming of the United States Capitol As part of the attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a suit with the U S Supreme Court seeking to have election results in four states nullified Cruz who had previously argued nine cases before the Supreme Court agreed to Trump s request to argue the Paxton suit should it come before the Court though it did not Cruz also garnered the support of ten other senators for a plan by his decades long friend Trump attorney John Eastman to delay the January 6 electoral vote certification for ten days to allow Republican legislatures in six key states Biden had won to consider submitting slates of Trump electors based on false allegations of widespread voting fraud Cruz said he was he was leading the charge to prevent Biden s certification as president 185 186 On January 6 2021 during the debate about whether Congress should accept Arizona s electoral votes Cruz said that 39 of Americans believed the 2020 presidential election was rigged but that I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election 187 Some observers think Cruz knew claims about fraud in the election were inaccurate and that this speech and his earlier statements were attempts to mislead for political gain 187 There are also concerns that he misrepresented the percentage of those concerned about rigging with the correct number being 28 188 189 Congress s counting of the Electoral College votes was interrupted by an insurrectionist mob that stormed the United States Capitol after a rally near the White House The attack resulted in the deaths of five people including a police officer 190 When Congress reconvened that evening to continue the count Cruz voted to object to Arizona s and Pennsylvania s electoral votes 191 The Senate rejected these objections by 93 6 and 92 7 respectively 192 The Texas Democratic Party called on Cruz to resign saying that his efforts to block Biden s lawful victory empowered the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol 193 The Texas Democratic Party also called on the U S Department of Justice to open an official investigation into Cruz for inciting sedition and treason 194 195 196 The Houston Chronicle called for Cruz to resign 197 The San Antonio Express News called for Cruz to be expelled from the Senate 198 Thousands of lawyers and law students called for him to be disbarred for inciting the insurrection 199 President elect Biden and Republican senator Pat Toomey both said Cruz was complicit in the big lie of Trump s allegations of voter fraud 200 Republican operative Chad Sweet the chair of Cruz s 2016 presidential campaign denounced Cruz for assault on our democracy 201 Several corporations halted donations to Cruz and other Republicans who voted to overturn the election based on Trump s false claims 202 203 3 Lauren Blair Bianchi Cruz s communications director resigned 204 On May 28 2021 Cruz voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the riot 205 On the eve of the anniversary of the attack he was recorded on video calling it a violent terrorist attack which drew sharp criticism from Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his program that night Cruz appeared on Carlson s program the next night to apologize for that comment as frankly dumb and sloppy The next day CNN reported that Cruz had characterized the attack as terrorism at least 17 times during the preceding year 206 207 208 Despite his attempts to downplay the incident Cruz was widely condemned by pro Trump Republicans especially Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene 209 for his comments Cancun controversy See also 2021 Texas power crisis In February 2021 during a historic winter storm up to 4 3 million Texas residents were left without power and millions of others without drinking water including Cruz and his family In the middle of the storm Cruz and his family were spotted on a plane heading to Cancun Mexico where they planned to stay at the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel and escape their home which Heidi Cruz called in a text message FREEZING 210 211 212 Cruz requested that the Houston police escort him and his family through the airport 213 Cruz left the family poodle Snowflake alone inside the house without heat reporters saw the dog through the window of the front door of the dark and empty house 214 Later a self identified security guard told a reporter he was caring for the dog 215 Cruz s political allies and rivals condemned him for leaving Texas during a crisis and traveling internationally during the COVID 19 pandemic 210 Cruz initially said he was taking his daughters on a weeklong vacation from school at their request in an attempt to be a good dad 216 Later that day he returned to Texas after allowing his family to stay in Mexico saying that the vacation was a mistake 217 Protesters calling for his resignation greeted him in front of his house upon his return 218 After returning from Cancun Cruz volunteered in Houston to help with recovery efforts 219 2016 presidential campaignMain article Ted Cruz 2016 presidential campaign Further information 2016 United States presidential election and 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries nbsp Cruz speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC in National Harbor MarylandAs early as 2013 Cruz was widely expected to run for the presidency in 2016 220 221 222 On March 14 2013 he gave the keynote speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC in Washington DC 223 He tied for 7th place in the 2013 CPAC straw poll on March 16 winning 4 of the votes cast 224 In October 2013 Cruz won the Values Voter Summit presidential straw poll with 42 of the vote 225 Cruz finished first in two presidential straw polls conducted in 2014 with 30 33 of the vote at the Republican Leadership Conference 226 and 43 of the vote at the Republican Party of Texas state convention 227 Cruz did speaking events in mid 2013 across Iowa New Hampshire and South Carolina all early primary states leading to further speculation that he was laying the groundwork for a 2016 bid 228 Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin described Cruz as the first potential presidential candidate to emphasize originalism as a major national issue 50 On April 12 2014 Cruz spoke at the Freedom Summit an event organized by Americans for Prosperity and Citizens United 229 The event was attended by several potential presidential candidates 230 In his speech Cruz mentioned that Latinos young people and single mothers are the people most affected by the recession and that the Republican Party should make outreach efforts to these constituents He also said that the words growth and opportunity should be tattooed on the hands of every Republican politician 229 Cruz delivered one of many State of the Union responses in January 2015 231 On March 23 2015 Cruz started his 2016 presidential campaign for the Republican primaries and caucuses in a morning speech delivered at Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia 232 Also at the same hour he posted on his Twitter page I m running for President and I hope to earn your support 233 He was the first major Republican presidential candidate for the 2016 campaign 234 235 During the primary campaign his base of support was mainly among social conservatives though he had crossover appeal to other factions within his party including in particular libertarian conservatives 236 237 HarperCollins published Cruz s book A Time for Truth Reigniting the Promise of America on June 30 2015 238 The book reached the bestseller list of several organizations in its first week of release 239 240 Primary wins nbsp Ted Cruz in Nashua New Hampshire on April 17 2015In the 2016 Republican presidential primaries Cruz received over 7 8 million votes 241 242 won 12 states and earned 559 delegates 243 He raised nearly 92 million a record for a Republican primary candidate much of it from small online donors The Cruz campaign had more than 325 000 volunteers 244 On February 1 2016 Cruz won the Iowa caucuses 245 The Iowa win made him the first Hispanic to win either a presidential primary election or caucus 245 246 247 He received 28 of the vote 247 On February 10 Cruz placed third in the New Hampshire primary with about 12 of the vote 248 On February 21 he placed third in the South Carolina Republican primary with about 22 3 of the vote 249 On March 1 2016 Super Tuesday Cruz won Texas by 17 along with Alaska and Oklahoma providing him with four state primary victories total 250 In the Texas primary he received the most votes in all but six of the state s 254 counties 251 On March 5 Cruz won the Kansas and Maine caucuses giving him six statewide wins 252 253 254 Cruz won his widest margin up to that point in Kansas where he beat front runner Donald Trump by 25 points 255 With his victories over Trump in Texas Kansas and Maine he established himself as the candidate with the best opportunity to defeat Trump the leading contender for the nomination 256 257 On March 8 2016 Cruz won the Idaho primary with 45 of vote defeating Trump by 17 and earning his seventh statewide victory 258 He placed second in Michigan Mississippi and Hawaii 258 On March 12 Cruz won the Wyoming county conventions with 67 of the vote and 9 delegates giving him his eighth statewide win 259 On March 22 Cruz won the Utah Caucus with 69 2 of the vote versus John Kasich with 16 8 and Trump with 14 260 Because he surpassed the 50 winner take all threshold he won all 40 of Utah s delegates This win was his ninth On April 3 North Dakota elected a slate of delegates dominated by pro Cruz delegates Cruz received the support of the majority of the delegates 261 On April 6 2016 Cruz won the Wisconsin primary with 48 2 of the vote to Trump s 35 1 It was Cruz s tenth statewide win He won 36 of the 42 delegates available in Wisconsin Trump received the other six On April 2 and 7 9 Cruz swept the Colorado congressional district and state conventions taking all 34 delegates 262 263 264 265 This gave Cruz his 11th state win On April 16 Cruz won all 14 of Wyoming s at large delegates in the state convention This secured the majority of state delegates giving Cruz his 12th state win 266 On April 27 he said that if he were selected as the party s nominee he would choose former CEO of HP and fellow 2016 Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate 267 Shortly after losing overwhelmingly to Trump in the Indiana primary on May 3 Cruz suspended his campaign 268 Citizenship Main article Ted Cruz 2016 presidential campaign Eligibility Further information Natural born citizen clause United States Cruz has said that when he was a child his mother told him that she would have to formally request Canadian citizenship for him so he and his family had always assumed he was not a Canadian citizen 269 In August 2013 after the Dallas Morning News pointed out that he had dual Canadian American citizenship 270 271 he applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada on May 14 2014 269 272 Several lawsuits and ballot challenges asserting that Cruz was ineligible to become U S president were filed at the time 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 None were successful and in February 2016 the Illinois Board of Elections ruled in Cruz s favor stating The candidate is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in Canada to his mother who was a U S citizen at the time of his birth 280 After candidacy nbsp Cruz at the 2016 Republican National Convention July 20 2016Shortly after the campaign s end Cruz indicated that he would restart the bid if successful in the Nebraska primary 281 which Trump later won 282 In the months following several publications noted that Cruz still had not endorsed Trump 283 284 Cruz explaining in June that he was watching and assessing to determine if he would support him in the forthcoming general election 285 On July 7 after a meeting with Trump he confirmed that he would speak at the 2016 Republican National Convention 286 In his speech on July 20 the third day of the convention Cruz congratulated Trump but did not endorse him He instead told listeners to vote your conscience vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution The speech was met with boos and a negative reception among the crowd 287 The following day at the Texas Republican delegation breakfast Cruz defended his choice to not endorse Trump I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father 288 289 On September 23 2016 he publicly endorsed Trump for president 290 On October 10 after the 2005 audio recording of Trump was released and several Republicans retracted their endorsements Cruz reaffirmed his support calling Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton manifestly unfit to be president 291 On November 15 he met with President elect Trump at Trump Tower in New York City It had been reported that Trump was considering Cruz for the position of U S Attorney General but the position went to Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions 292 On November 28 in light of Trump showing a softer tone on his campaign promises Cruz warned that justified backlash could ensue if he strayed from them 293 Cruz was backed by the billionaire Mercer family including Robert and his daughter Rebekah 294 Political positionsMain article Political positions of Ted CruzCruz has been characterized as staunchly conservative radical right a religious conservative and anti establishmentarian 81 295 296 297 Communism Cruz is a critic of the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States saying on Fox News in December 2014 that the thaw in relations was a manifestation of the failures of the Obama Clinton Kerry foreign policy that will be remembered as a tragic mistake 298 In July 2018 Cruz spoke at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Asia He said It is a pleasure to be here and stand in solidarity for the men and women across this globe who have been persecuted by communists We must stand united in shining light in highlighting heroism in highlighting courage in speaking out for those like my family like so many millions across the globe who ve seen the jackboot of communism firsthand 299 Crime guns and drug policy Cruz has called for an end to overcriminalization harsh mandatory minimum sentences and the demise of jury trials 300 He supports the death penalty 301 In his 2012 Senate campaign Cruz frequently mentioned his role as counsel for the State of Texas in Medellin v Texas a 2008 case in which the U S Supreme Court held that Texas has the right to ignore an order from the International Court of Justice directing the U S to review the convictions and sentences of dozens of Mexican nationals on death row 302 He has called Medellin the most important case of his tenure as Texas solicitor general 302 Cruz is a gun rights supporter 303 and opposes expanding gun control regulations 304 In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt discussing the attack that killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs Cruz said that the simple and undeniable fact is the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats and claimed that Democrats are soft on crime because convicted felons tend to vote Democratic 305 In August 2015 in the wake of the ambush death of a Texas police officer who was gunned down while filling up at a gas station Cruz said that police are feeling the assault from the President from the top on down as we see whether it s in Ferguson or Baltimore the response from senior officials the President or the Attorney General is to vilify law enforcement That s wrong It s fundamentally wrong It s endangering all of our safety and security 306 Cruz met with gun control advocates Alyssa Milano and Fred Guttenberg to discuss gun violence in the United States Guttenberg said this was a really important day 307 In May 2022 after the Robb Elementary School shooting Cruz blamed mass shootings on declining church attendance violent video games prescription drugs cyberbullying social isolation and other societal factors 308 nbsp Cruz and President Donald Trump after signing the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017Cruz opposes legalizing cannabis but believes it should be decided at the state level 309 After Colorado legalized cannabis he said If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go down that road that s their prerogative I personally don t agree with it but that s their right 310 Economy Cruz has been described by the Cato Institute s Center for Trade Policy Studies as a free trader 311 and as a free trade advocate by The Wall Street Journal 312 In 2013 he proposed the abolition of the IRS and the implementation of a flat tax where the average American can fill out taxes on a postcard 313 Cruz is adamantly opposed to a higher minimum wage 314 Cruz wants to decrease the size of the government significantly In addition to eliminating the IRS as described above he has promised to eliminate four other cabinet level agencies the Department of Energy Department of Education Department of Commerce and Department of Housing and Urban Development 315 Cruz was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 316 Education Cruz is a proponent of school choice 317 and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative 318 Energy and environment Cruz rejects the scientific consensus on climate change 319 320 In March 2015 he said that some people are global warming alarmists and citing satellite temperature measurements said contrary to NASA s analysis that there had been no significant warming in 18 years 320 321 322 Cruz voted against the Water Resources Development Act of 2013 that would have created the National Endowment for the Oceans and authorized more than 26 billion in projects to be built by the Army Corps of Engineers at least 16 billion of which would have come from federal taxpayers 323 324 He voted against the bill because it neglected to reduce a substantial backlog of projects to the detriment of projects with national implications such as the Sabine Neches Waterway 325 Cruz said the Corps responsibilities were expanded without providing adequate measures for state participation 325 Proponents of the bill argued that it would provide steady funding to support research and restoration projects funded primarily by dedicating 12 5 of revenues from offshore energy development including oil gas and renewable energy through offshore lease sales and production based royalty payments distributed through a competitive grant program 326 In 2017 Cruz was one of 22 senators to sign a letter 327 addressed to Trump urging him to withdraw from the Paris Agreement According to OpenSecrets Cruz has received more than 2 5 million in campaign contributions from oil gas and coal interests since 2012 328 He has a lifetime score of 3 on the National Environmental Scorecard of the League of Conservation Voters 329 Cruz is a supporter of TransCanada s Keystone XL Pipeline 330 and following the Republican senate whip was a cosponsor of legislation in support of the pipeline 331 Federal Reserve In a 2014 opinion editorial in USA Today Cruz wrote that auditing the Federal Reserve System was a top Republican priority in 2015 and that he supported legislation that would allow the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the Federal Reserve s monetary policy Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen whose confirmation Cruz tried to prevent said in her confirmation hearing that she opposed any audit of the Federal Reserve and that for 50 years Congress has recognized that there should be an exception to GAO ability to audit the Fed to avoid any political interference in monetary policy 332 333 Foreign affairs nbsp Cruz attended the opening of the US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May 2018 In 2015 Cruz voted for the USA Freedom Act which reauthorized the USA Patriot Act but reformed some of its provisions 334 335 Cruz has been an adamant opponent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action a 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the U S and other world powers calling it catastrophic and disastrous 336 337 In 2013 Cruz said that the U S had no dog in the fight during the Syrian Civil War and that its armed forces should not serve as al Qaeda s air force 338 In 2014 he criticized the Obama administration The president s foreign policy team utterly missed the threat of ISIS indeed was working to arm Syrian rebels that were fighting side by side with ISIS calling ISIS the face of evil In a statement opposing U S intervention for regime change in Syria Cruz said If President Obama and Hillary Clinton and Sen Rubio succeed in toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad the result will be the radical Islamic terrorists will take over Syria that Syria will be controlled by ISIS and that is materially worse for U S national security interests 339 In September 2016 Cruz backed the Obama administration s plan to sell more than 1 15 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia 340 In early January 2017 Cruz Texas governor Greg Abbott and some others met with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing wen Cruz criticized the People s Republic of China after it reportedly made a statement asking members of Congress not to meet with Tsai 341 342 343 On January 5 2017 Cruz voted in favor of a House resolution condemning UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which condemned Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law 344 In June 2017 Cruz co sponsored the Israel Anti Boycott Act s 720 which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government 345 346 nbsp Cruz with President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2019In August 2018 Cruz and 16 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China s Xinjiang region 347 They wrote The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in political reeducation centers or camps requires a tough targeted and global response 348 On December 18 2018 Cruz and Senator Tom Cotton put forth a resolution in the U S Senate urging the United States to affirm Israel s sovereignty over the Golan Heights 349 Cruz has called the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline a threat to the security of Europe and the U S In December 2019 he and Senator Ron Johnson wrote a letter to Edward Heerema the owner of the offshore pipe layer Allseas to warn him of sanctions if Allseas did not suspend its work on the pipeline which would deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany 350 A few days later Allseas suspended the work 351 In December 2020 the Russian pipelaying ship Akademik Cherskiy continued pipelaying 352 In January another pipelayer Fortuna joined forces with the Akademik Cherskiy to complete the pipeline 353 On June 4 2021 Putin announced that the pipelaying for first line of the Nord Stream 2 was fully completed On June 10 the pipeline s sections were connected 354 The laying of the second line was completed in September 2021 355 A co sponsor of the resolution to commemorate the Armenian genocide Cruz said that while Turkey is a NATO ally We should never be afraid to tell the truth and alliances grounded in lies are themselves unsustainable 356 American video game company Activision Blizzard punished a Hong Kong based professional gamer for supporting pro democracy Hong Kong protests Cruz accused Blizzard and Apple of censorship 357 He co signed a letter to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick that read As China amplifies its campaign of intimidation you and your company must decide whether to look beyond the bottom line and promote American values like freedom of speech and thought or to give in to Beijing s demands in order to preserve market access 358 Beginning during his time as a Dublin California city councilman Eric Swalwell was targeted by a Chinese woman believed to be a clandestine officer of China s Ministry of State Security Swalwell s general relationship with a suspected Chinese agent Christine Fang has been characterized as problematic particularly given his high profile role as a member of the House Intelligence Committee 359 Cruz tweeted More than once I ve said screw the Chinese communists Little did I know how closely Swalwell was listening 360 In October 2021 Cruz posted a tweet that was critical of Australia s Northern Territory s vaccine mandates 361 Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Michael Gunner s response to the tweet went viral quickly garnering near universal support from Australians 362 363 364 365 In 2022 Cruz sharply criticized the Chinese government for its detention of Houston resident Mark Swidan who has been held for over ten years The United Nations and U S government consider Swidan wrongfully detained 366 Hate crimes Cruz was one of six Republican senators to vote against expanding the COVID 19 Hate Crimes Act which would allow the U S Justice Department to review hate crimes related to COVID 19 and establish an online database 367 368 Health care nbsp Cruz questions US Customs and Border Protection leaders on COVID 19 preparedness in March 2020 Cruz was a vocal critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed under President Obama in 2010 During the first year of Trump s presidency Cruz sponsored legislation to repeal the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 and was part of the group of 13 senators that drafted the unsuccessful 2017 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act replacement proposals of the AHCA 369 370 371 372 Hurricane aid In 2013 Cruz voted against a bill to provide a package of federal aid to the Northern East Coast for recovery from Hurricane Sandy 373 because he said the bill was filled with unrelated pork and two thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy The Washington Post disputed this writing that the bill was largely aimed at dealing with Sandy along with relatively minor items to address other or future disasters 374 The New York Times wrote that of 23 examples of extraneous spending that a spokesman for Mr Cruz provided all but one 195 million in discretionary funds for the secretary of health and human services were Sandy related or sought to mitigate future storms as the law required 375 In 2015 in the wake of severe flooding in Texas Cruz supported federal aid funding and in 2017 called for federal intervention as Hurricane Harvey approached the coast of Texas 376 Immigration Cruz took a hard line stance on immigration issues during the 2014 border crisis 377 and opposes comprehensive immigration reform 50 377 He advocates an increase from 65 000 to 325 000 annually in skilled foreign workers entering the United States using H 1B visas 378 According to McClatchy Cruz staked out hard right immigration stances during his 2016 presidential campaign 379 Cruz opposes paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children so called DREAMers 380 In February 2018 he was the sole senator to oppose a Republican motion to begin debate on legislation intended to resolve the question of what to do with DREAMers 381 He has called for the repeal of the clause of the 14th amendment that grants citizenship to those born in the United States 382 He defends the Trump administration s policy of separating migrant children from their parents 383 384 blaming the migrant parents for crossing the U S border to seek asylum and claiming that the Obama administration maintained a similar policy 383 384 In December 2020 Cruz blocked the Hong Kong People s Freedom and Choice Act which would give Hong Kongers refugee status citing the threat of spying by China He said the law was an attempt by Democrats to advance their long standing goals on changing immigration laws 385 During a May 2021 Senate Rules Committee hearing Cruz falsely asserted that House Democrats had designed the For The People Act such that it directs people to break the law and register millions of people to vote who are not eligible to vote because they are not United States citizens and automatically registers to vote anyone who interacts with the government regardless of their immigration status The bill repeatedly states only U S citizens would be permitted to register 386 Judiciary nbsp Ted Cruz and Judge Brett Kavanaugh in July 2018In March 2016 about seven months before the forthcoming presidential election Cruz argued the Senate should not consider Obama s nominee to the Supreme Court on the grounds that this should be a decision for the people Let the election decide If the Democrats want to replace this nominee they need to win the election In September 2020 less than two months before the next presidential election Cruz supported an immediate vote on Trump s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg s death 387 During Donald Trump s presidency Cruz and fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn contributed to the appointment of multiple conservative judges to federal courts with jurisdiction over Texas 388 389 390 391 Military Cruz has criticized the U S military for becoming emasculated by its recruiting efforts comparing those efforts unfavorably to the Russian military s 392 393 He accused Democratic politicians of trying to transform the greatest military on earth into pansies 392 He has claimed the military is debilitated and its ability to project power and obtain air superiority is tragically anemic 394 Blaming bloated bureaucracy and social experiments Cruz has proposed reducing the size of the active duty military while increasing spending 395 Net neutrality Cruz opposes net neutrality which prevents Internet service providers from deliberately blocking or slowing particular websites arguing that the Internet economy has flourished in the United States simply because it has remained largely free from government regulation 396 He has argued that net neutrality is the Obamacare for the internet 397 398 Cruz said that the Obama era implementation of the principle of net neutrality had the end result of less broadband less innovation and less freedom for the American consumer 398 In December 2017 after the Republican controlled Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality he mocked supporters of net neutrality as snowflakes who were misled by online propaganda 399 Outsourcing of jobs During his 2016 presidential campaign Cruz strongly denounced outsourcing American jobs to other countries alleging that any politician who allowed it to happen was betraying their constituents He pinned some of his blame on then President Obama saying that Obama had overseen outsourcing for the previous seven years Cruz s denunciation of Obama was criticized by PolitiFact which found that the modern pattern of American outsourcing while prevalent during the Obama years had started earlier 400 During the campaign one of Cruz s promises was to return manufacturing jobs to the U S His choice of running mate Carly Fiorina was met with pushback due to her record of outsourcing but he defended her 401 In 2022 Cruz voted against Bernie Sanders s proposed measure for the United States Innovation and Competition Act which promised to fund semiconductor manufacturers amid a shortage of their products during the COVID 19 pandemic The measure would block semiconductor manufacturers funded by the bill from outsourcing their jobs and forbid them to dissuade their employees from forming unions 402 403 Social issues Cruz is strongly anti abortion but would allow the procedure when a pregnancy endangers the mother s life 404 405 He is in favor of cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood 406 Cruz opposes both same sex marriage and civil unions 407 In 2013 he said he wanted marriage to be legally defined as only between one man and one woman 408 but also said that the legality of same sex marriage should be left to each state to decide 409 In 2015 after the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell ruled same sex marriage bans unconstitutional he called the decision the very definition of tyranny 410 accused the court of judicial activism and said it was among the darkest hours of our nation 411 In 2017 the same day that an audio clip resurfaced of Alabama Judge Roy Moore calling Obergefell worse than the 1857 ruling that upheld slavery Cruz endorsed Moore for U S Senate 412 He reaffirmed his position in 2022 after comments by Justice Clarence Thomas 413 While speaking to students at a summit for Turning Point USA an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics on high school college and university campuses Cruz joked that his favored personal pronoun is kiss my ass 414 In July 2022 Cruz issued a press release saying that he supported the repeal of the 1973 Texas anti sodomy law writing consenting adults should be able to do what they wish in their private sexual activity and the government has no business in their bedrooms 415 416 Cruz compared the vandalism and destruction of monuments and memorials in the United States to the 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban 417 PodcastCruz and Michael J Knowles started a podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz on January 21 2020 The first episodes were summaries of the impeachment hearings of Donald Trump After the hearings ended the podcast expanded its content to include other topics and interviews including with Washington politicians such as U S Senators Tim Scott Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee Trump administration officials including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows then U S Attorney General Bill Barr U S Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and actors Jon Voight and Isaiah Washington 418 In October 2022 Verdict with Ted Cruz picked up corporate partner iHeartRadio The podcast also expanded to three times a week and Ben Ferguson replaced Knowles as co host 419 BooksCruz Ted 2015 A Time for Truth Reigniting the Promise of America Broadside Books ISBN 978 0 06 236561 3 Cruz Ted 2020 One Vote Away How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History Regnery ISBN 978 1 68451 134 1 Cruz Ted 2022 Justice Corrupted How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System Regnery ISBN 978 1 68451 361 1 Cruz Ted 2023 Unwoke How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America Regnery ISBN 978 1 68451 362 8 Personal life nbsp Cruz with his wife Heidi at a rally in Houston March 2015Cruz married Heidi Nelson on May 27 2001 420 The couple met when Cruz was working on George W Bush s 2000 presidential campaign Heidi took leave from her position as head of the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman Sachs amp Co in 2016 to support Cruz s run for president 421 She previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker 422 Cruz lives with his wife and their two children in River Oaks Houston 423 424 Cruz has joked I m Cuban Irish and Italian and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist 425 He is fond of wearing cowboy boots but he refrained from doing so when arguing before the Rehnquist court 426 As of 2018 according to OpenSecrets Cruz s net worth was more than 3 1 million 427 On March 8 2020 Cruz began self isolation after contact with a person infected with COVID 19 at the ACU s Conservative Political Action Conference Staying at his home in Texas 428 he avoided contact with colleagues and constituents for 14 days Cruz said he had been advised that the odds of contracting the virus were very low 429 In 2023 Cruz cameoed in The Daily Wire comedy film Lady Ballers 430 Electoral historyYear Office Type Party Main opponent Party Votes for Cruz Result Ref Total P 2012 Senator Primary Republican David Dewhurst Republican 480 558 34 16 2nd N A Won 431 Runoff 631 812 56 82 1st N A Won 432 General Paul Sadler Democratic 4 440 137 56 46 1st 5 23 Won 433 2016 President Primary Republican Donald Trump Republican 7 822 100 25 08 2nd N A LostConvention 551 22 3 2nd N A2018 Senator Primary Republican Mary Miller Republican 1 322 724 85 36 1st 51 2 Won 434 General Beto O Rourke Democratic 4 260 553 50 89 1st 5 57 Won 435 See alsoConspiracy theories related to the Trump Ukraine scandal List of foreign born United States politicians Legal challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act List of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States Congress List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Chief Justice List of United States senators born outside the United States Donald Trump Supreme Court candidatesReferences Croucher Shane January 9 2016 It s official Ted Cruz a citizen of the U S and the U S only Newsweek Retrieved November 21 2021 Cruz Sworn In As First Hispanic Texas U S Senator KRWG January 3 2013 Retrieved February 13 2022 a b Capitol attack prompts top US firms to pull funding for leading Republicans The Guardian Retrieved January 12 2021 a b c d e f CRUZ Rafael Edward Ted Biographical Information Bioguide congress gov Retrieved April 27 2013 U S senator Ted Cruz Archived April 5 2016 at the Wayback Machine Austin American Statesman a b c Abel Allen Markusoff Jason January 13 2016 Ted Cruz Made in Canada Maclean s Magazine Retrieved January 15 2016 Panetta Alexander May 9 2015 Birthplace of President Ted Cruz Calgary homeowner hopes it never happens Calgary Herald The Canadian Press Retrieved January 15 2015 Steward is pretty sure the American conservative began life at the Foothills Medical Centre a government run Canadian socialist hospital Ferguson John Wayne August 13 2012 Texplainer Could Canadian Born Ted Cruz Be President Texas Tribune Retrieved August 17 2013 Bottom line Despite being born in Canada Cruz is a U S citizen because his mother was a U S citizen according to constitutional experts Cruz Ted 2015 A Time For Truth Reigniting the Promise of America New York NY Broadside Books ISBN 978 0 06 236561 3 a b c Costa Robert August 28 2013 The Rise of Rafael Cruz National Review Retrieved August 28 2013 Born in Matanzas Cuba he grew up in the Cuba middle class in the 1950s as the son of an RCA salesman and an elementary school teacher As a teenager he grew to detest the regime of Fulgencio Batista He and some of his schoolmates frequently clashed with Batista s officials Eventually he linked up with Castro s guerrilla groups and supported their attempts to overthrow Batista It s a decision he still regrets His move toward Castro he explains was mostly due to his anger with Batista s government which at one point imprisoned him and tortured him for his work with the revolutionaries He says he never shared Castro s Communism but at the time it was the best way to fight Batista s oppression By age 18 in 1957 he knew he needed to get out and a friend essentially bribed an official to secure him an exit permit Gillman Todd J August 18 2013 Canada born Ted Cruz became a citizen of that country as well as U S The Dallas Morning News Archived from the original on August 19 2013 Retrieved August 19 2013 a b c Eckholm Erik August 1 2012 A Republican Voice With Tea Party Mantle and Intellectual Heft The New York Times Retrieved February 28 2013 About Senator Cruz www cruz senate gov Retrieved January 8 2021 Edison Hayden Michael Mallin Alexander Blake Paul November 26 2016 Donald Trump US Political Figures React to Fidel Castro s Death ABC News Horowitz Jason November 9 2015 Cuban Peers Dispute Ted Cruz s Father s Story of Fighting for Castro Published 2015 The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved February 19 2021 Welna David June 20 2013 How Ted Cruz s Father Shaped His Views On Immigration NPR Retrieved December 14 2015 a b c Olsen Lise October 13 2012 Cruz s life defies simplification Houston Chronicle Retrieved August 28 2013 The ex revolutionary pastor regularly stumps for his son whom he s compared to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah a relentless advocate with fire in his bones Ted he says is not going to Washington to compromise Swartz Mimi March 31 2015 Ted Cruz and the New Politics of Texas The New York Times New York Retrieved April 17 2015 Ted Cruz s Father Talks About Latinos Conservatives and the American Dream FOX News Latino April 8 2012 Retrieved October 6 2013 Cruz the father and his wife Eleanor Darragh left the United States for a few years living in Canada to take advantage of the oil boom Zernike Kate November 18 2011 A Test for the Tea Party in Texas Senate Race The New York Times Retrieved November 18 2011 Jeffrey Terence 2011 Ted Cruz New Voice for the American Dream Creators Syndicate Archived from the original on September 21 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 a b Garrett Robert T April 28 2013 Senate candidate Ted Cruz aims to pick up mantle of Reagan The Dallas Morning News Retrieved August 22 2013 Mervis Jeffrey December 9 2015 From a bully pulpit Ted Cruz offers his take on climate change ScienceInsider Washington D C Retrieved February 6 2016 Larson Leslie Ted Cruz plans to renounce Canadian citizenship Daily News New York December 30 2013 a b Recio Maria April 1 2015 Ted Cruz s family story Poignant but incomplete McClatchy Retrieved December 14 2015 Ted Cruz s Secret Weapon to Win the Right National Journal Andy Kroll June 25 2015 retrieved November 11 2015 Cruz Ted 2015 A Time for Truth Reigniting the Promise of America Broadside pp 28 44 101 03 Hopper Jessica July 2 2015 7 Things You Never Knew About Ted Cruz That We Learned From Reading His Book ABC News Retrieved March 22 2021 Vogel Scott September 1 2015 Vetting Ted Cruz s Presidential Resume Houstonia Magazine Retrieved September 18 2021 Eriksen Helen August 11 2005 Solicitor general carries supreme weight with Katy roots Houston Chronicle Archived from the original on March 25 2008 Retrieved October 2 2013 Distinguished Alumni Second Baptist School Archived from the original on May 30 2015 Retrieved April 22 2015 Mackey Maureen March 23 2015 Ted Cruz 20 Things You Didn t Know About Him Fiscal Times Retrieved April 23 2015 7 He graduated from Houston s Second Baptist High School in 1988 and was valedictorian of his class Dunham Richard October 15 2012 Profile A man of many contrasts Ted Cruz defies easy stereotypes Houston Chronicle Retrieved April 23 2015 Cruz was one of only two Hispanics when he transferred to Houston s Second Baptist School his junior year He graduated valedictorian in 1988 Miller Jake March 19 2015 Will grassroots support be enough for Sen Ted Cruz in 2016 CBS News Retrieved April 23 2015 He graduated valedictorian of his high school in 1988 attended Princeton University for his undergraduate studies and received his law degree from Harvard University Barbash Fred March 23 2015 Why Liberty University in Lynchburg Va is the perfect launchpad for Ted Cruz The Washington Post Retrieved April 23 2015 The last time he spoke there Cruz made no mention of his Ivy League degrees but recalled fondly his memories of Second Baptist High School in Houston where he was valedictorian and how his wife was the daughter and granddaughter of missionaries Ted Cruz Biography com 2015 Retrieved April 23 2015 The valedictorian of his class at Houston s Second Baptist High School Cruz went on to Princeton University a b Lizza Ryan November 19 2012 The Party Next Time The New Yorker pp 50 57 Retrieved July 20 2013 Ted Cruz s Biography Project Vote Smart Philipsburg Montana Retrieved February 8 2016 a b Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs January 3 2013 Ted Cruz 92 Sworn in as U S Senator from Texas Princeton University Bulletin Princeton New Jersey Archived from the original on July 24 2015 Retrieved April 14 2014 a b Princeton Debate Panel Hall of Fame Princeton University Debate Panel Retrieved October 2 2013 Australians Win Debate At Princeton A Singapore Woman Won The Award For Best Speaker English Is Not Her Native Language The Philadelphia Inquirer Horowitz Jason April 22 2015 Ted Cruz Showed Eloquence and Limits as Debater at Princeton The New York Times Retrieved April 25 2015 By the time he was a senior at Princeton University in 1992 Ted Cruz had developed an arsenal of rhetorical skills and theatrical gestures that made him one of the most polished performers on the college debate circuit a b Princeton Debate Panel Cruz Novice Championship Archived from the original on January 11 2014 Retrieved January 11 2014 Ted Cruz 92 isn t welcome back to Colonial his old club Princeton University October 19 2015 Cruz Ted April 2 1992 Ted Cruz s 1992 Clipping the Wings of Angels Princeton University Archived from the original on January 9 2013 Retrieved February 28 2013 Begala Paul August 1 2012 Ted Cruz and Texas s Tea Party Revolution The Daily Beast Retrieved August 17 2013 a b c d e f g h i R Ted Edward Cruz Attorney Biography Wayback Machine Houston Texas Morgan Lewis amp Bockius LLP March 29 2011 Archived from the original on May 21 2010 Retrieved December 30 2013 R Ted Edward Cruz is a partner in Morgan Lewis s Litigation Practice and leads the firm s U S Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Practice a b c d e f Weiner Rachel August 1 2012 Who is Ted Cruz The Washington Post Retrieved August 17 2013 McManus Doyle August 12 2013 Ted Cruz wacko like a fox Los Angeles Times Retrieved August 17 2013 Clarida Matthew Q Lucky Jared T May 30 2013 Defusing the H Bomb In politics Harvard alums frame diplomas strategically The Harvard Crimson Retrieved August 17 2013 Yes Ted Cruz for Texas National Review July 30 2012 Retrieved August 17 2013 a b c d Russ Hilary April 5 2010 Rising Star Morgan Lewis R Ted Cruz PDF Law360 Archived from the original PDF on September 27 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 a b Tribpedia Ted Cruz Texas Tribune Retrieved August 21 2013 a b c d e f g Toobin Jeffrey June 30 2014 Ted Cruz The Absolutist The New Yorker Retrieved June 25 2014 Westneat Danny May 19 1998 Civil Suit Against Mcdermott Over Leaked Tapes Gears Up Rep Boehner Says His Privacy Was Violated The Seattle Times Smith Allan September 29 2015 John Boehner once hired Ted Cruz to be his lawyer Business Insider New York New York Retrieved April 29 2016 Furious Boehner called it an invasion of privacy He hired Cruz who had recently served as a clerk for then Chief Justice William Rehnquist a b c d e Cottle Michelle March 12 2013 The Reinvention of Ted Cruz The Daily Beast Retrieved August 17 2013 a b Office of Attorney General Greg Abbott April 9 2008 Attorney General Abbott Appoints New Solicitor General Longtime Solicitor General R Ted Cruz returns to private practice Deputy Solicitor General Sean Jordan to serve on leadership team State of Texas Archived from the original on November 18 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 a b c d e Wilson David McKay Fall 2012 Carrying the Tea Party Banner U S Senate candidate Ted Cruz calls for a return to the framers vision of a constitutionally limited government Harvard Law School Bulletin Retrieved August 17 2013 a b Batheja Aman July 23 2012 For Cruz Supreme Court Work at Heart of Campaign Texas Tribune Retrieved August 21 2013 We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country There was a degree of serendipity in that but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights Przybyl Heidi April 29 2015 Ted Cruz Anti Gay Marriage Crusader Not Always Bloomberg Retrieved May 1 2015 Block Melissa March 14 2008 D C Gun Ban Critic Court Must Clarify Constitution NPR Cruz Ted March 14 2007 Second Amendment Showdown The Wall Street Journal Retrieved August 17 2013 Elk Grove Unified School District and David W Gordon Superintendent vs Michael A Newdow et al No 02 1624 Amici Curiae Brief Supreme Court of the United States December 2003 Because of Their History and Ubiquity Acknowledgments of Religion in Patriotic or Historical Contexts Are Entirely Consistent with the Establishment Clause Atheist Loses 2nd Under God Court Appeal CBS News March 12 2010 Retrieved March 16 2016 Reinert Patty June 28 2006 Most of Texas redistricting map upheld Houston Chronicle Retrieved August 15 2013 a b Medellin v Texas 552 U S 491 2008 No 06 984 Mears Bill January 19 2009 U N court rules U S execution violated treaty CNN Retrieved March 23 2015 Dretke v Haley 541 U S 386 389 92 2004 a b Cunningham Larry 2005 The Innocent Prisoner and the Appellate Prosecutor Some Thoughts on Post Conviction Prosecutorial Ethics after Dretke v Haley Criminal Justice Ethics 24 2 13 doi 10 1080 0731129X 2005 9992185 S2CID 145639890 SSRN 1152792 French David January 14 2016 David Brooks s Hypocritical Attack on Ted Cruz Reveals an Important Truth National Review Retrieved March 24 2016 The Young Litigators Fab Fifty American Lawyer Media January 1 2007 Archived from the original on April 10 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 The 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America The National Law Journal American Lawyer Media May 26 2008 Retrieved August 17 2013 Ambrogi Robert J May 27 2008 Legal Blog Watch American Lawyer Media Law com Retrieved August 17 2013 The 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century American Lawyer Media June 28 2010 Retrieved August 17 2013 Tex Parte Blog American Lawyer Media October 6 2010 Luncheon Honors 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century Texas Lawyer Archived from the original on December 24 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 a b Passarella Gina May 6 2008 Morgan Lewis Adds Texas Solicitor General Law com Retrieved June 2 2011 Ted Cruz has always had a master plan Now it could win him the White House Yahoo November 24 2015 Retrieved January 1 2016 a b Corn David April 9 2015 As a private lawyer Ted Cruz defended companies found guilty of wrongdoing Mother Jones San Francisco Retrieved January 27 2016 Lindell Chuck August 27 2010 Court gets OK for Toyota contempt hearing Austin American Statesman Austin Texas Retrieved January 27 2016 Under Texas law the trial court lost all jurisdiction in the case 30 days after Green s lawsuit was dismissed Toyota s appellate lawyer Ted Cruz of Houston told the Supreme Court in briefs Court of Appeals November 6 2011 Opinion Texas Judicial Branch State of Texas pp 72 77 a b c Corn David February 11 2015 As a Lawyer Ted Cruz Defended Huge Jury Awards As a Politician He Opposed Them Mother Jones Retrieved January 22 2016 a b Williamson Elizabeth January 20 2016 Two Sides of Ted Cruz Tort Reformer and Personal Injury Lawyer The New York Times Retrieved January 22 2016 Berry Jeffrey M Sobieraj Sarah 2013 The Outrage Industry Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility Oxford University Press p 177 a b Mudde Cas 2017 The Far Right in America Routledge pp 20 24 73 Retrieved January 5 2021 Gordon Maggie April 13 2017 Ted Cruz once the beneficiary of Tea Party tactics feels their sting HoustonChronicle com Retrieved January 5 2021 Sullivan Sean November 28 2012 The biggest upset of 2012 The Washington Post Retrieved August 20 2013 Cruz s secret Mastering social media Politico July 31 2012 Edwards Levy Ann May 10 2012 Sarah Palin Endorses Ted Cruz For U S Senate In Texas Yahoo Retrieved August 4 2013 Toeplitz Shira June 2 2011 Club for Growth Picks Texas Senate Favorite Roll Call Geraghty Jim June 2 2011 FreedomWorks PAC Likes Ted Cruz National Review Retrieved February 18 2013 Levin Mark June 4 2011 Mark Levin endorses Ted Cruz for US Senate in Texas The Right Scoop Retrieved February 18 2013 Shapiro Michael W January 25 2012 Tea Party Express endorses Ted Cruz for Senate in Waco Waco Tribune Herald Retrieved February 18 2013 Scharrer Gary January 5 2012 Young conservatives choose Cruz San Antonio Express News Archived from the original on September 29 2013 Retrieved February 18 2013 Sullivan Sean November 28 2011 For DeMint A Few Well Timed Endorsements National Journal Archived from the original on April 15 2012 Retrieved March 30 2012 Catanese David March 7 2011 Sen Lee backs Ted Cruz in Texas Politico Retrieved March 30 2012 Gravois John July 26 2011 Tea Party stalwart Rand Paul backs Cruz over Dewhurst in Texas U S Senate race Fort Worth Star Telegram Archived from the original on February 24 2013 Retrieved February 18 2013 McKinley Kathleen August 1 2011 Sen Pat Toomey Endorses Ted Cruz for The Texas Senate Race Houston Chronicle Archived from the original on September 27 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 Whittington Mark May 7 2012 Ron Rand Paul Endorse Ted Cruz for Texas Senate Seat Yahoo News Retrieved August 4 2013 Weissert Will May 24 2012 Santorum endorses Ted Cruz in Texas Senate race Associated Press Archived from the original on September 28 2013 Retrieved August 17 2013 Weissert Will July 31 2012 Ted Cruz Defeats David Dewhurst In Texas Senate Runoff Associated Press Retrieved August 17 2013 a b Hartfield Elizabeth July 31 2012 Ted Cruz Wins In Texas GOP Senate Runoff ABC News Retrieved March 25 2015 Dewhurst enjoyed a huge financial advantage over Cruz According to OpenSecrets Dewhurst poured 11 million of his own personal fortune he founded a successful energy company called Falcon Seaboard into his campaign spending a total of 19 million as compared to Cruz s 7 million spent Duszak Alexandra Texas Senate race attracts 13 million in super PAC spending Center for Public Integrity Archived from the original on June 19 2018 Retrieved May 16 2015 State of Texas July 31 2012 Election Results Office of the Secretary of State Archived from the original on January 9 2014 Retrieved August 17 2013 Burka Paul Sweany Brian D July 26 2013 Ted Cruz and the Hispanic Vote Texas Monthly Retrieved April 15 2014 Drucker David M Ted Cruz poll Dems have edge over GOP among Hispanics in Texas Washington Examiner July 25 2013 Calabresi Massimo October 18 2013 Ted Cruz Failed To Disclose Ties To Caribbean Holding Company Time Retrieved October 30 2013 a b McIntire Mike January 13 2016 Cruz Didn t Disclose Loan From Goldman Sachs for His First Senate Campaign The New York Times Retrieved January 14 2016 a b Mullins Brody Ted Cruz Didn t Adequately Disclose 2012 Loans for Senate Campaign The Wall Street Journal January 14 2016 Blumenthal Paul Foley Elise May 16 2022 The Supreme Court Makes Ted Cruz A Half Million Dollars Richer HuffPost Retrieved May 16 2022 Robert Barnes January 19 2022 Supreme Court seems likely to side with Sen Ted Cruz in campaign finance case The Washington Post ISSN 0190 8286 Retrieved January 22 2022 Sullivan Sean May 11 2016 Ted Cruz files to run for reelection to the Senate in 2018 The Washington Post Retrieved July 25 2016 Texas 2018 General Election The Green Papers Retrieved December 10 2017 Taylor Jessica Seipel Arnie March 6 2018 Texas Primary Democratic Votes Surge But Republicans Recover Early Vote Deficit NPR Archived from the original on March 12 2021 Retrieved March 7 2018 Golshan Tara September 12 2018 Ted Cruz s surprisingly competitive battle against Beto O Rourke explained Vox Retrieved November 3 2018 Wallace Jeremy October 12 2018 Cruz vs O Rourke is Most Expensive U S Senate Race in History Houston Chronicle Retrieved November 17 2018 2018 General Election Election Night Returns Texas Secretary of State Archived from the original on November 15 2018 Retrieved November 7 2018 Senator Cruz s Legislation Library of Congress Retrieved November 14 2018 Sides John Tesler Michael Vavreck Lynn 2018 Identity Crisis The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America Princeton University Press p 38 ISBN 978 0 691 17419 8 JSTOR j ctvc77mmb Popkin Samuel L 2020 Crackup The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 091382 3 Kirby Jen January 22 2018 Ted Cruz mascot of the 2013 shutdown says he has consistently opposed shutdowns Vox Retrieved May 10 2018 a b c d Fahrenthold David A Zezima Katie February 16 2016 For Ted Cruz the 2013 shutdown was a defining moment The Washington Post a b c d Raju Manu October 3 2013 Some colleagues angry with Cruz Politico Keith Tamara October 2 2013 Why Ted Cruz Looms Large In Government Shutdown Drama NPR Kapur Sahil September 8 2015 Ted Cruz to Star in Government Shutdown the Sequel Bloomberg Ted Cruz Reads Green Eggs And Ham Ted Cruz Filibuster 9 25 13 YouTube Archived from the original on October 28 2021 Retrieved January 5 2021 Manning Rick December 27 2013 Ted Cruz 2013 Person of the Year The Hill Washington DC Capitol Hill Publishing Corp Retrieved December 28 2013 No politician had a greater impact on the past year than freshman U S Sen Ted Cruz R Texas Cruz came from the Lone Star State not owing the D C political establishment anything after he beat the chosen replacement for Kay Bailey Hutchison in an underfunded grassroots driven Republican primary election Mantyla Kyle December 11 2014 Glenn Beck Declares Ted Cruz Blaze Man Of The Year Right Wing Watch Washington D C People for the American Way Retrieved April 21 2013 Lord Jeffery December 19 2013 Ted Cruz Man of the Year The American Spectator Arlington Virginia The American Spectator Foundation Archived from the original on February 20 2014 Retrieved April 21 2014 Hawkins John December 31 2014 Top 10 Conservatives of 2013 Townhall com Retrieved April 21 2014 Leary Alex January 7 2014 Sarasota GOP to honor Ted Cruz to be honored as Statesman of the Year Tampa Bay Times Tampa Bay Metro Area Archived from the original on April 5 2014 Retrieved April 21 2014 Ammann Phil January 7 2014 Sarasota GOP to honor Sen Ted Cruz as its Statesman of the Year saintpetersblog com Retrieved February 20 2014 Edelman Adam December 9 2013 TIME magazine releases finalists for 2013 Person of the Year award Daily News New York Retrieved April 21 2014 Eyes roll as Ted Cruz denies role in 2013 government shutdown Speechless says one senator Dallas News January 22 2018 Retrieved January 23 2018 Ted Cruz says he s opposed shutdowns but he hasn t always PolitiFact Retrieved May 10 2018 S 2195 Summary United States Congress Retrieved April 11 2014 a b Marcos Cristina April 10 2014 Congress approves bill banning Iran diplomat The Hill Retrieved April 11 2014 Neuman Scott April 2 2014 U S Troubled By Iran s Choice Of 1979 Hostage Taker For U N Post NPR Retrieved November 11 2014 Mackey Robert April 4 2014 Iran s Reformers Include More Than One Former Hostage Taker The New York Times Retrieved April 11 2014 A bipartisan message to Iran Politico Magazine Archived from the original on May 10 2015 Retrieved April 20 2014 Ted Cruz thanks Obama for denying visas to terrorists The Washington Post Retrieved April 20 2014 Ted Cruz Writes Thank You Letter To Obama In Politico Fox News Archived from the original on April 2 2015 Retrieved April 20 2014 Wright Austin April 21 2015 Ted Cruz the senator Heard but not seen Politico Archived from the original on April 22 2015 Retrieved April 22 2015 Committee Assignments of the 117th Congress United States Senate January 3 2021 Retrieved April 3 2022 a b c Jesse Weiner Ted Cruz Confused About Cicero What the Texas Republican misrepresents about treason and politics in the Roman Republic The Atlantic November 21 2014 a b Eliza Collins Cruz stands by calling Obama a sponsor of terrorism Politico July 29 2015 David Jackson Romney hits Cruz over Obama terrorism claim USA Today July 30 2015 Alex Griswold Mitt Romney Ted Cruz Way Over the Line Calling Obama Terror Sponsor Mediaite July 30 2015 Stack Liam February 13 2016 Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz says Obama shouldn t appoint the next replacement The New York Times Retrieved March 1 2016 Frank John June 20 2016 In Colorado Cruz backs Glenn rips Obama over Orlando The Denver Post Chasmar Jessica July 15 2016 Ted Cruz to Obama after Nice attack Willful blindness is not a policy The Washington Times Hopper Jessica November 27 2016 Ted Cruz No U S Officials Should Attend Fidel Castro s Funeral ABC News Saba Yousef December 28 2016 Rubio Cruz denounce Kerry s speech on Israel Politico 9 truly awful things Ted Cruz and Donald Trump said about each other The Washington Post ISSN 0190 8286 Retrieved May 28 2021 Gardner Amy After period of reckoning Ted Cruz recasts himself From opposition force to Trump ally The Washington Post Retrieved June 23 2018 Skibba Ramin January 13 2017 How Cruz and Trump learned to like each other Politico Retrieved June 23 2018 McCaskill Nolan Glueck Katie March 2 2016 Cruz President Trump would nuke Denmark Politico Retrieved October 12 2021 Lovegrove Jamie January 31 2017 Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court Dallas News Dinan Stephen February 23 2017 Cruz urges Trump to field army of Scalias and Thomases The Washington Times Retrieved February 24 2017 Sherfinski David March 1 2017 Ted Cruz Trump s speech a positive unifying vision for the country The Washington Times Kullgren Ian March 19 2017 Cruz I negotiated health care at Mar a Lago Politico Byrnes Jesse April 6 2017 Cruz Trump should make the case for military action in Syria The Hill a b Cillizza Chris April 19 2018 Ted Cruz s embarrassing ode to Donald Trump is why people hate politicians CNN Retrieved June 6 2018 Pierce Charles April 19 2018 The Three Saddest Words I Ever Read in English By Ted Cruz Esquire Retrieved June 6 2018 Willis Jay Ted Cruz s Write Up on Trump for the TIME 100 Is an Event Horizon for Utter Self Humiliation GQ Retrieved June 6 2018 a b c Weiner Rachel July 31 2013 Ted Cruz shies away from some harsh rhetoric The Washington Post Retrieved September 4 2020 a b c d Arit John September 26 2013 All of Ted Cruz s Republican Critics The Atlantic Retrieved September 4 2020 Rushton Christine April 28 2016 John Boehner Ted Cruz is Lucifer in the flesh Los Angeles Times Retrieved April 28 2016 Treyz Catherine February 26 2016 Lindsey Graham jokes about how to get away with murdering Ted Cruz CNN Retrieved April 28 2016 a b David Morgan amp Richard Cowan Republican White House hopeful Cruz calls McConnell a liar Archived November 18 2015 at the Wayback Machine Reuters July 24 2015 a b Manu Raju Cruz accuses Mitch McConnell of telling a flat out lie Politico July 24 2015 Ted Barrett Republicans rebuke Cruz over his charge McConnell lied CNN July 27 2015 Rogers Alex Cruz McConnell Told Flat Out Lie to Conservatives Archived February 19 2016 at the Wayback Machine National Journal July 24 2015 DeBonis Mike Ted Cruz to GOP leader You lied The Washington Post July 24 2015 Jonathan Capehart How Mitch McConnell went gangsta on Ted Cruz and Mike Lee The Washington Post July 29 2015 Manu Raju amp Burgess Everett Senate smackdown Cruz Lee efforts squelched The rift between Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz widens Politico July 27 2015 Todd J Gillman Cruz says he s vilified for fighting the Washington cartel Dallas Morning News June 24 2015 Zurcher Anthony September 25 2015 John Boehner resigns and Ted Cruz gloats BBC News Retrieved October 17 2015 Arkin James House Passes Budget Debt Ceiling Agreement Real Clear Politics October 29 2015 Bolton Alexander May 6 2018 GOP faces internal battle over changing Senate rules The Hill Retrieved May 24 2018 Svitek Patrick September 14 2020 Ted Cruz says he doesn t want to join the Supreme Court after being shortlisted by Trump The Texas Tribune Retrieved December 7 2020 Sen Cruz Urges U S Supreme Court To Hear Emergency Appeal On Pennsylvania Election Challenge KTVT December 2 2020 Retrieved December 7 2020 Roebuck Jeremy December 6 2020 U S Supreme Court moves up deadline in congressman s bid to upend Pa election results The Philadelphia Inquirer Retrieved December 7 2020 Knoedler Matt December 7 2020 Texas Sen Ted Cruz to join Rep Mike Kelly s legal team if Supreme Court hears election challenge lawyer confirms WICU TV Retrieved December 7 2020 Routh Julian December 9 2020 U S Supreme Court denies Republican appeal to block Pa election results Pittsburgh Post Gazette Retrieved January 16 2021 Treene Alayna January 2 2021 Multiple senators are planning to object to certifying the 2020 presidential election Axios Retrieved January 2 2021 Pengelly Martin January 2 2021 Ted Cruz and other Republican senators oppose certifying election results The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved January 2 2021 Itkowitz Colby DeBonis Mike January 3 2021 Cruz cadre of other GOP senators vow not to certify Biden win without probe of baseless voter fraud claims The Washington Post Retrieved January 16 2021 Kranish Michael March 28 2022 Inside Ted Cruz s last ditch battle to keep Trump in power The Washington Post Farley Robert March 3 2016 Cruz s Record Before the Supreme Court FactCheck org a b Bump Philip January 6 2021 Ted Cruz s electoral vote speech will live in infamy The Washington Post Retrieved January 16 2021 Valverde Miriam January 6 2021 39 of Americans 31 of independents 17 of Democrats believe the election was rigged PolitiFact Retrieved January 16 2021 Kahn Chris November 18 2020 Half of Republicans say Biden won because of a rigged election Reuters Ipsos poll Reuters Retrieved January 16 2021 The 28 who said they thought the election was the result of illegal voting or election rigging is up 12 points from four years ago Fisher Marc January 7 2021 The four hour insurrection The Washington Post Retrieved January 16 2021 Bump Philip Analysis Ted Cruz s electoral vote speech will live in infamy The Washington Post ISSN 0190 8286 Retrieved January 8 2021 Roll Call Vote 117th Congress 1st Session USSen U S Senate January 7 2021 Retrieved January 7 2021 Texas Democrats call for Sen Ted Cruz s resignation for acting in bad faith ABC 13 ABC January 7 2021 Retrieved January 7 2021 Gillman Todd J January 7 2021 Ted Cruz accused of abetting sedition and inspiring pro Trump riot by resisting Biden s victory Dallas News Retrieved January 7 2021 Texas Democrats call on Ted Cruz to resign from U S Senate KTSM 9 News January 7 2021 Retrieved January 7 2021 AOC Texas Democrats Call for Ted Cruz to Resign spectrumlocalnews com Retrieved January 7 2021 Editorial Resign Senator Cruz Your lies cost lives Houston Chronicle Retrieved January 8 2021 Editorial Impeachment for Trump Expulsion for Cruz Houston Chronicle January 9 2021 Retrieved January 10 2021 Budryk Zack Nearly 6 000 lawyers and law students call for disbarment proceedings against Cruz and Hawley The Hill Retrieved January 11 2021 Pengelly Martin Luscombe Richard January 10 2021 Complicit in big lie Republican senators Hawley and Cruz face calls to resign The Guardian Retrieved January 23 2021 Gillman Todd J January 10 2021 Ted Cruz s 2016 presidential campaign chair denounces him for assault on our democracy after Capitol riot Dallas News Retrieved January 11 2021 Corporate America halts donations to Republicans who voted to overturn the election CNN Retrieved January 11 2021 Ted Cruz Josh Hawley Other GOP Objectors Face Donation Boycott From Major Businesses Newsweek Retrieved January 11 2021 Bowden John January 12 2021 Cruz aide resigns following violence at Capitol The Hill Retrieved January 14 2021 Stevenson Peter W Blanco Adrian Santamarina Daniela May 21 2021 Which senators supported a Jan 6 Capitol riot commission The Washington Post Retrieved May 29 2021 Dale Daniel January 7 2022 Sloppy wording this week Ted Cruz actually called the Capitol assault a terrorist attack at least 17 previous times CNN Fox host spars with Ted Cruz on live TV over Jan 6th Keilar rolls the tape CNN January 7 2022 Cilliza Christopher January 7 2022 Ted Cruz told the truth about the 1 6 attack Then he started backtracking CNN Retrieved January 8 2022 Sheth Sonam Metzger Bryan Rep Matt Gaetz taunts Sen Ted Cruz and says you can bend over but the establishment will never love you Business Insider a b Goldmacher Shane Fandos Nicholas February 18 2021 Ted Cruz s Cancun Trip Family Texts Detail His Political Blunder The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved February 19 2021 Barrabi Thomas February 18 2021 Ted Cruz s wife Heidi invited neighbors to join Cancun trip in leaked texts Report Fox News Retrieved February 19 2021 Singh Maanvi Greve Joan E February 19 2021 Texas storm Ted Cruz defends trip to Mexico as power outages continue as it happened The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved February 19 2021 Houston Police confirms officers monitored Sen Ted Cruz family through IAH Houston Chronicle 18 February 2021 Hardy Michael February 19 2021 Ted Cruz Abandons Millions of Freezing Texans and His Poodle Snowflake New York Intelligencer Retrieved February 20 2021 Hardy Michael February 19 2021 Ted Cruz Abandons Millions of Freezing Texans and His Poodle Snowflake New York Intelligencer Retrieved February 21 2021 Lenthang Marlene Khan Mariam Siegel Benjamin February 19 2021 Ted Cruz back in Texas after facing backlash for flying to Cancun amid brutal weather ABC News Barrabi Thomas February 18 2021 Cruz admits Cancun trip obviously a mistake as he returns to find protesters outside his Texas home Fox News Retrieved February 19 2021 Protesters Outside Texas Sen Ted Cruz s Home Demand His Resignation Bloomberg Quicktake Now February 19 2021 Archived from the original on October 28 2021 Retrieved February 22 2021 Kingery Jerrod February 22 2021 Amid Cancun trip backlash Sen Ted Cruz volunteers for storm recovery efforts in Houston KEYE Retrieved February 23 2021 Cillizza Chris September 13 2013 Rand Paul 2016 Republican front runner The Washington Post Retrieved September 28 2013 Bump Philip September 25 2013 Ted Cruz s First 2016 Campaign Ad Is Over 21 Hours Long The Atlantic Wire Archived from the original on October 12 2013 Retrieved September 28 2013 Metzler Rebekah September 27 2013 Poll Ted Cruz Leads 2016 GOP Field U S News amp World Report Retrieved September 28 2013 Romano Lois March 14 2013 CPAC 2013 Marco Rubio Rand Paul fight for the future of the GOP Politico Retrieved March 14 2013 Montanaro Domenico March 16 2013 Rand Paul wins CPAC straw poll Rubio close second NBC News Retrieved July 21 2013 Rayman Noah October 13 2013 Ted Cruz Dominates Republican Straw Poll Time Retrieved January 23 2014 Finnegan Conor May 31 2014 Ted Cruz wins presidential straw poll at Republican Leadership Conference CNN Retrieved July 1 2014 Jeffers Gromer June 7 2014 Ted Cruz wins Texas GOP s presidential straw poll Rick Perry finishes distant fourth Dallas Morning News Archived from the original on April 14 2016 Retrieved July 1 2014 Killough Ashley July 21 2013 Cruz tries to sidestep 2016 question CNN Retrieved July 21 2013 a b Fuller Jaime Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are the big draws at the Freedom Summit The Washington Post Retrieved April 16 2014 Fuller Jaime April 12 2014 Freedom Summit draws GOP hopefuls to N H The Washington Post Retrieved April 16 2014 Breitman Kendall January 21 2015 Ted Cruz flubs deletes YouTube response to Obama Politico Retrieved March 7 2018 Transcript Ted Cruz s Speech at Liberty University The Washington Post March 23 2015 Retrieved March 23 2015 Ted Cruz Announces Presidential Bid NBC News March 23 2015 Retrieved March 23 2015 Schleifer Theodore March 21 2015 Ted Cruz to announce presidential bid Monday Houston Chronicle Houston Texas Retrieved March 22 2015 Cruz will launch a presidential bid outright rather than form an exploratory committee said senior advisers with direct knowledge of his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet They say he is done exploring and is now ready to become the first Republican presidential candidate Corasaniti Nick Healy Patrick March 23 2015 Ted Cruz Becomes First Major Candidate to Announce Presidential Bid for 2016 The New York Times New York New York Retrieved March 23 2015 Zitner Aaron January 4 2016 Poll Points to Upside for Ted Cruz Marco Rubio in GOP Race The Wall Street Journal New York Retrieved February 5 2016 Ted Cruz Speech Nods to Increasing Libertarian Views within Republican Party Cato Institute Retrieved March 6 2016 Cruz Ted June 30 2015 A Time for Truth Reigniting the Promise of America Ted Cruz 9780062365613 Amazon com Books HarperCollins ISBN 978 0062365613 Byers Dylan July 13 2015 Amazon No evidence of bulk sales for Cruz book Politico Titus Elizabeth July 13 2015 NYT Defends Exclusion of Ted Cruz s Book We Are Confident Bloomberg com politics Berg Andersson Richard E Republican Convention The Green Papers Retrieved July 6 2016 RealClearPolitics 2016 Republican Popular Vote realclearpolitics com Retrieved October 1 2016 2016 Delegate Count Tracker 2016 Election Politico Retrieved October 1 2016 Thrush Glenn July 18 2016 Ted Cruz contemplates the unthinkable Politico Washington DC Retrieved July 18 2016 The first term senator won 8 million votes 600 delegates and 12 states He raised nearly 92 million a record for a GOP primary candidate much of it from small online donors He ran by far the best ground operation of any GOP campaign this year with more than 325 000 volunteers flocking to Cruz s call for a grass roots Republican renewal a b Ted Cruz makes history becomes first Hispanic to win Iowa caucus FOX News Latino New York February 1 2016 Retrieved March 22 2016 Borchers Callum February 3 2016 Ted Cruz is the first Latino to win a caucus or primary Why isn t that a bigger deal The Washington Post Washington DC Retrieved March 22 2016 a b Collinson Stephen February 2 2016 Iowa caucus results Ted Cruz wins Hillary Clinton declares victory Atlanta Georgia CNN Retrieved February 6 2016 Cruz s victory sets him up as a formidable force in delegate rich Southern states to come and offers movement conservatives hope that one of their own can become the Republican nominee for the first time since Ronald Reagan New Hampshire Republican Primary New York CBS News February 10 2016 Retrieved February 10 2016 Mihalik Lily February 20 2016 Live results from the 2016 South Carolina GOP primary Los Angeles Times Los Angeles California Retrieved February 21 2016 Rafferty Andrew March 2 2016 Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Score Big Super Tuesday Primary Wins NBC News McCullough Jolie March 2 2016 Cruz Clinton Grab Most Votes in Almost Every Texas County Texas Tribune Austin Texas Retrieved March 2 2016 With 100 of precincts reporting Cruz came away with 1 239 158 votes or 43 8 of the total Donald Trump followed behind with 757 489 votes or 26 7 of the vote Cruz one of the state s two U S senators got the most votes in all but six of the state s 254 counties Cruz Easily Wins Kansas Republican Caucuses Kansas City Star March 5 2016 Martin Jonathan March 5 2016 Ted Cruz Wins Kansas Caucuses as 5 States Vote on Super Saturday The New York Times New York Retrieved March 5 2016 Senator Ted Cruz scored a hard fought and decisive win in the Kansas caucuses on Saturday demonstrating his enduring appeal among conservatives as he tries to reel in Donald J Trump s significant lead in the Republican presidential race Svitek Patrick March 5 2016 Cruz Goes Two for Four Wins Kansas Maine Texas Tribune Austin Texas Archived from the original on February 25 2021 Retrieved March 6 2016 Levine Sam Ted Cruz Crushes At Kansas Republican Caucus HuffPost March 5 2016 Easley Jonathan Cruz on Trump s heels after victories on Super Saturday The Hill March 6 2016 Some see Cruz as best alternative to Trump Mohave Valley Daily News Bullhead City Arizona March 7 2016 Retrieved March 7 2016 a b Svitek Patrick March 8 2016 Ted Cruz Wins Idaho Places Second in Three Other States Texas Tribune Austin Texas Retrieved March 9 2016 U S Sen Ted Cruz on Tuesday night won the Idaho GOP presidential primary while placing second in three other states continuing to demonstrate viability against frontrunner Donald Trump Cruz crushes Trump in Wyoming Republican caucus March 13 2016 Retrieved March 13 2016 With all votes counted Texas Senator Cruz won 66 3 percent of the ballots in the western state far ahead of his nearest rival Florida Senator Marco Rubio who earned 19 5 percent of the vote Results from the Utah caucuses Los Angeles Times March 22 2016 North Dakota Republican Delegation 2016 thegreenpapers com Retrieved October 1 2016 Sarlin Benjy April 8 2016 Colorado Loss Reveals Chaotic Overwhelmed Trump Campaign NBC News Retrieved January 9 2021 Ted Cruz wins first 6 Colorado delegates Donald Trump shut out The Spot Archived from the original on August 12 2016 Retrieved April 17 2016 Peters Jeremy W April 9 2016 Ted Cruz Wins Majority of Delegates in Colorado The New York Times Frank John Bunch Joey April 9 2016 Ted Cruz dominates Colorado GOP convention winning all 34 delegates The Denver Post News from The Associated Press Archived from the original on February 5 2019 Cruz announces Fiorina as choice for running mate Fox News April 27 2016 Retrieved June 6 2016 Flegenheimer Matt May 3 2016 Ted Cruz Ends His Campaign for President The New York Times Retrieved May 3 2016 a b Gillman Todd June 10 2014 No Canada Sen Ted Cruz has formally shed his dual citizenship Dallas Morning News Dallas Texas A H Belo Archived from the original on September 18 2016 Retrieved June 10 2014 Alberta born Sen Ted Cruz has given up his Canadian dual citizenship The renunciation became official on May 14 roughly 9 months after he learned he wasn t only an American Gillman Todd December 28 2013 Ted Cruz says he s hired lawyers to renounce Canadian citizenship Dallas Morning News Dallas Texas A H Belo Retrieved December 30 2013 Michelle Ye Hee Lee January 10 2015 Cruz says it s clear and straightforward that he s a natural born U S citizen The Washington Post Retrieved January 10 2016 Blake Aaron August 19 2013 Cruz Will Renounce Canadian Citizenship The Washington Post Retrieved August 20 2013 Tuohy Dan November 24 2015 BLC upholds Sanders Trump on primary ballots Union Leader Archived from the original on August 13 2018 Retrieved February 18 2016 Blaisdell Eric January 1 2016 Vermonter tries to keep names off presidential ballot Rutland Herald Archived from the original on February 19 2016 Leary Alex January 14 2016 Marco Rubio seeks to dismiss court challenge to his eligibility to be president Tampa Bay Times Archived from the original on February 19 2016 Ben Winslow and Max Roth January 26 2016 Utah man suing Ted Cruz claiming he s not a natural born citizen KSTU Koplowitz Howard February 5 2016 Alabama residents lawsuit claims Ted Cruz ineligible to run for president The Birmingham News Lanning Curt February 8 2016 Lawsuit Remove Cruz and Rubio from Ark Ballot KARK TV Archived from the original on June 30 2017 Retrieved February 18 2016 Calkins Laurel Brubaker Cirilli Kevin January 14 2016 Cruz s Natural Born Citizen Status Tested in Birther Suit Bloomberg Business Retrieved February 17 2016 Merda Chad February 3 2016 Illinois election board Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen Chicago Sun Times Chicago Illinois Archived from the original on February 4 2016 Retrieved February 4 2016 Kamisar Ben, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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