35 Facts About Senator Ted Cruz

1. Senator Ted Cruz's previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker.

2. Senator Ted Cruz married Heidi Nelson on May 27, 2001; they have two daughters, Caroline and Catherine.

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

4. Senator Ted 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".

5. Senator Ted Cruz is a supporter of TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline, and along with every other Republican senator was a cosponsor of legislation in support of the pipeline.

6. Senator Ted Cruz proposes to eliminate the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

7. Senator Ted Cruz wants to decrease the size of the government significantly.

8. In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz proposed the abolition of the IRS and the implementation of a flat tax "where the average American can fill out taxes on a postcard".

9. Senator Ted Cruz has referred to Medellin as the most important case of his tenure as Texas solicitor general.

10. Senator Ted 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".

11. Senator Ted Cruz is a strong critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

12. Senator Ted Cruz is a proponent of school choice and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

13. Senator Ted Cruz is in favor of cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

14. Senator Ted Cruz won 36 of the possible 42 delegates available in Wisconsin.

15. Senator Ted Cruz won his widest margin up to that point in Kansas, where he beat frontrunner Donald Trump by 25 points.

16. On March 5, 2016, Senator Ted Cruz won the Kansas and Maine caucuses, giving him six statewide wins.

17. Senator Ted Cruz raised nearly $92 million, a record for a GOP primary candidate, much of it from small online donors.

18. On March 23, 2015, Senator Ted Cruz announced his 2016 presidential candidacy for the GOP primaries and caucuses, in a morning speech delivered at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

19. Senator Ted Cruz said that the words "growth and opportunity" should be tattooed on the hands of every Republican politician.

20. Senator Ted Cruz called fellow Republicans out as "squishes" on gun-control issues during a Tea Party rally.

21. In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz referred to Republicans who he thought were insufficiently resistant to the proposals of President Obama as a "surrender caucus".

22. Senator Ted Cruz has used harsh rhetoric against fellow Republican politicians, and his relationships with various Republican members of Congress have been strained.

23. In June 2016, Senator Ted Cruz blamed the Obama administration for the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, reasoning that it did not track the perpetrator Omar Mateen properly while he was on the terrorist watch list.

24. Senator Ted Cruz was a finalist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2013.

25. Senator Ted Cruz persuaded the House of Representatives and House Speaker John Boehner to include an ACA defunding provision in the bill.

26. Senator Ted Cruz gave a 21-hour Senate speech in an effort to hold up a federal budget bill and therefore defund the Affordable Care Act.

27. Senator Ted Cruz had a leading role in the October 2013 government shutdown.

28. Senator Ted Cruz disclosed the loans on his Senate financial disclosure forms in July 2012, but not on the Federal Election Commission form.

29. Senator Ted Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination with a 14-point margin over Dewhurst, where support for Dewhurst plummeted while Cruz's vote total dramatically increased since the first round.

30. Senator Ted Cruz was the first Hispanic to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.

31. Senator Ted Cruz serves on the Board of Advisors of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.

32. Senator Ted Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy near Katy, Texas; and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988.

33. Senator Ted Cruz left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin and obtained political asylum in the US after his four-year student visa expired.

34. Senator Ted Cruz was the longest-serving Solicitor General in Texas history and the first Hispanic American to serve in that capacity.

35. Senator Ted Cruz was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election.