40 Fun Facts About Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz, a United States senator from Texas, was born in 1970 in which nation, whose citizenship he gave up in 2014?

Canada was home for his first years, and he held dual citizenship until a Dallas newspaper pointed it out in 2013. He formally renounced it the following year.

Which Dr. Seuss book did Ted Cruz read aloud on the Senate floor during a 21-hour speech in 2013?

Green Eggs and Ham exists because of a bet: Dr. Seuss's editor wagered $50 that he could not write a book using only 50 different words. Cruz read it during an all-night stand in the chamber.

During the Texas winter storm and blackouts of February 2021, Ted Cruz flew with his family to which Mexican resort?

Cancún was meant to last through the weekend, but after he was spotted on the plane he flew back to Texas the next day without his family and called the trip a mistake.

An internet joke that began in 2013 pretends that Ted Cruz is secretly which notorious California murderer?

The Zodiac Killer's last confirmed attack came 14 months before Ted Cruz was born, which is the point of the joke. Cruz has played along, once posting one of the coded letters himself.

Which 1980s fairy-tale adventure film does Ted Cruz call his favorite, often quoting it on the campaign trail?

The Princess Bride is the film he knows by heart, and in 2015 its star Mandy Patinkin complained that Cruz kept quoting his character while missing the story's point about revenge.

Which insulting nickname did Donald Trump repeatedly use for Ted Cruz during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries?

Lyin' Ted was the label Trump used again and again, and Cruz hit back by calling him a chronic liar. Within a few years the two were allies in Washington.

Ted Cruz says he grew up on classic rock but switched to which genre of music after the September 11 attacks?

Country won him over, he told CBS in 2015, because he liked how its artists responded to the attacks and was let down by rock's reaction.

Ted Cruz began using the nickname Ted at age 13, but which legal first name does he share with his father?

Rafael Edward Cruz is the name he was given at birth, so Ted is short for his middle name rather than for Theodore.

Just after their honeymoon, Ted Cruz went shopping alone and surprised his wife Heidi with 100 cans of which food?

Soup, 100 cans of Campbell's Chunky in assorted flavors, came home with him. Heidi returned it all the next morning, then bought it back because neither of them could cook.

Ted Cruz beat which late-night television host 11–9 in a one-on-one charity basketball game in Texas in 2018?

Jimmy Kimmel had compared the senator's looks to a blobfish, so Cruz challenged him to the game, which was nicknamed the Blobfish Basketball Classic and raised over $80,000 for charity.

Ted Cruz beat Donald Trump in February 2016 to win the first contest of the Republican race in which state?

Iowa made him the first Hispanic candidate to win a presidential primary or caucus. He took 28% of the vote there and finished the race with 11 states.

Ted Cruz narrowly won re-election to the Senate in 2018 by beating which Democratic challenger?

Beto O'Rourke lost by 50.9% to 48.3%, a slim margin for Texas. Six years later Cruz won his third term by more than eight points.

Ted Cruz's 21-hour Senate speech in September 2013 was an attempt to strip funding from which federal law?

Affordable Care Act funding survived because only 18 Republican senators backed the effort, and the standoff fed into that autumn's federal government shutdown.

In which Texas city did Ted Cruz grow up and graduate from high school as valedictorian in 1988?

Houston is where he went to junior high at an international school and, as a teen, joined a club that taught students free-market economics.

Ted Cruz earned his law degree with high honors in 1995 from which university's law school?

Harvard is where he helped found the Latino Law Review and where professor Alan Dershowitz later described him as off-the-charts brilliant.

Ted Cruz was named US National Speaker of the Year in 1992 for his success in which college activity?

Debate was his arena: he won the top speaker award at two championships in 1992, and his university's team later named its annual novice tournament after him.

Ted Cruz won his first Senate race in 2012 as a favorite of which grassroots conservative movement?

Tea Party support carried him past a far better-funded rival in the primary, an upset that made him the first Hispanic senator from Texas.

Ted Cruz was booed at the 2016 Republican National Convention after his speech withheld what from Donald Trump?

An endorsement was what the crowd expected, but Cruz only congratulated Trump and told listeners to vote their conscience. He came around two months later, in September 2016.

Ted Cruz met his future wife, Heidi Nelson, while both worked on which candidate's 2000 presidential campaign?

George W. Bush's campaign also sent Cruz to the Florida recount, where he helped assemble the legal team and recruited a future chief justice, John Roberts.

As a teenager, Ted Cruz joined a five-student group that memorized a shortened mnemonic version of which document?

The US Constitution was the subject of the Constitutional Corroborators, who met two evenings a week to study the Federalist Papers and the arguments over ratification.

Ted Cruz has joked that he is Cuban, Irish and Italian yet somehow ended up in which Christian denomination?

Southern Baptist is the punchline because all three of those heritages are traditionally Catholic. His father left the Catholic Church in 1975 after joining a Bible study group.

Ted Cruz studied public policy as an undergraduate at which Ivy League university, graduating with honors in 1992?

Princeton is where he wrote a 115-page thesis on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, titled Clipping the Wings of Angels after a line credited to James Madison.

Which former Hewlett-Packard chief executive did Ted Cruz name as his running mate days before ending his 2016 campaign?

Carly Fiorina had been a rival for the nomination earlier in the race. Picking a running mate before winning is rare, and the ticket lasted only six days.

At which Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, did Ted Cruz launch his presidential campaign in March 2015?

Liberty University gave him a packed hall: students were required to attend the convocation or be fined, and he became the first major Republican to enter the race.

Which Texas attorney general, later the state's governor, appointed Ted Cruz as solicitor general in 2003?

Greg Abbott wanted a national voice for Texas in court, and Cruz delivered: he argued nine cases before the US Supreme Court, more than any other Texas lawyer of the period.

Ted Cruz served as a law clerk from 1996 to 1997 for which member of the US Supreme Court?

William Rehnquist was chief justice at the time. Years later, Cruz left his trademark cowboy boots at home when he argued cases in front of his old boss.

Which former Republican House speaker likened Ted Cruz to the Devil during the 2016 presidential primaries?

John Boehner had once been Cruz's client: in 1998 the young lawyer was briefly on the team representing him in a lawsuit against a fellow congressman.

Which name belongs to the Ted Cruz family poodle left at home during the family's February 2021 trip to Mexico?

Snowflake was seen by reporters through the front door of the dark house, and a security guard later said he was looking after the dog.

Which foreign government sanctioned Ted Cruz twice in 2020 after he condemned its human rights record?

China named him in July 2020 over his comments on Xinjiang and again in August over Hong Kong, each time alongside other American politicians.

Ted Cruz's father left his homeland in 1957 during the rule of which dictator, later toppled by Fidel Castro?

Fulgencio Batista was still in power when the elder Cruz left to study at the University of Texas. He has said he arrived with $100 sewn into his underwear and almost no English.

Ted Cruz suspended his 2016 presidential campaign after a heavy defeat by Donald Trump in which state's primary?

Indiana was billed as the last chance to stop Trump, and its governor, Mike Pence, said he would vote for Cruz. Pence became Trump's running mate that summer.

Which tabloid's 2016 story, repeated by Donald Trump, tied Ted Cruz's father to John F. Kennedy's assassination?

National Enquirer's claim outlived the campaign: in 2017 a fellow Republican senator, Ben Sasse, was still teasing Cruz about it online, and Cruz joked back.

Which one-word title leads the name of the podcast Ted Cruz launched in January 2020 during an impeachment trial?

Verdict began as a recap of each day's hearings and outlasted them. In 2025 a syndication deal made Cruz the first sitting US senator to host a national radio show.

Which Utah senator, an early backer of Ted Cruz's 2012 campaign, is regarded as one of his few close Senate allies?

Mike Lee worked with him on the 2013 push to defund the health law, and Cruz has said he takes pride in his reputation for having so few allies in Washington.

Ted Cruz became chairman in 2025 of which Senate committee, whose remit includes aviation, space and broadband?

Commerce is a committee he has sat on since his first term, and in 2025 he led the effort to pass the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which was signed into law that year.

Ted Cruz's mother, a Rice University mathematics graduate, was born in which small East Coast state?

Delaware, specifically Wilmington, was her birthplace, and her American citizenship is why election officials ruled in 2016 that her son counts as a natural-born citizen.

Which memoir did Ted Cruz publish with HarperCollins in June 2015, three months after entering the presidential race?

A Time for Truth reached several bestseller lists in its first week. His later books include One Vote Away, about how single seats on the Supreme Court can change history.

Ted Cruz made a cameo as himself in which 2023 comedy film from the conservative media company The Daily Wire?

Lady Ballers also featured cameos from commentator Candace Owens and swimmer Riley Gaines, with Daily Wire hosts such as Ben Shapiro in the cast.

Ted Cruz won the 2012 Republican Senate runoff against which sitting Texas lieutenant governor, who outspent him?

David Dewhurst spent $19 million to Cruz's $7 million and still lost the runoff by 14 points, a result The Washington Post called the biggest upset of 2012.

Which Republican senator dismissed Ted Cruz and his allies as wacko birds in March 2013, weeks into Cruz's term?

John McCain said the group's beliefs did not reflect the views of most Republicans. Two years later he called a Cruz floor speech attacking the chamber's Republican leader a very wrong thing to do.