Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born 22 December 1970) is a politician serving as the junior US Senator from Texas (R) from 3 January 2013, succeeding Kay Bailey Hutchison. He was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2016, and he was one of the leading challengers before losing to Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention.
Biography[]
Rafael Edward Cruz was born on 22 December 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to the Evangelical preacher Rafael Bienvenido Cruz and Eleanor Wilson. In 1974, the family moved to Houston, Texas, where Cruz was raised. In 1992 he graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in public policy and from Harvard Law School in 1995; in 1999 he became a domestic policy adviser for George W. Bush's presidential race. From 2003 to 2008 he was Solicitor General of Texas under Greg Abbott, and he won five out of nine cases he argued before the US Supreme Court.
In 2012, after Kay Bailey Hutchison decided to not seek reelection as the Senator from Texas, Cruz succeeded in a campaign to become the new senator. In 2015, Cruz announced that he would run for President of the United States for the US Republican Party, and he was an initial ally of Donald Trump before falling out with him after insulting "New York values". Their alliance ended, and they became rival for the top spot in the Republican polls; on 1 February 2016 he won the Iowa caucus over Trump, the first Hispanic to win a caucus. He was known for his strong views on the USA's diplomacy, saying that he would rip up the nuclear deal with Iran if elected and would want saturated carpet bombing against the Islamic State. Cruz led in the polls in many elections, and it became apparent that he would not be a running mate for Trump, but instead his archenemy in the Republican primaries. While he was beating him in February, by early March he had 28.6% of the vote, 6 state wins, and 304 delegates, while Trump had 34.36% of the vote, 12 state wins, and 391 delegates. Cruz welcomed in new supporters of his cause in a 13 March 2016 speech in North Carolina, and Cruz hoped to become the leader of the anti-Trump faction of the Republican Party, which made up 65% of the party at the time.
However, Cruz fell in line with the other Republicans after Trump won the nomination, and he supported a sped-up consideration of Trump's cabinet and Supreme Court nominees. In 2018, he faced an unusually competitive re-election challenge from Democrat Beto O'Rourke, but he narrowly won re-election with 50.9% of the vote.