Heidi Cruz sees best and worst
She’s an integral part of her husband’s campaign, and as such, she’s been targeted by crude tactics
“If Ted is Type A, Heidi is Type A+.”
Don Willett, a Texas Supreme Court justice
Heidi Cruz is a visible force at campaign events for her husband, Ted, waving from the stage, often with the couple’s two young daughters in tow, wooing big-dollar donors and chatting with voters at campaign stops.
More so than any other candidate’s spouse, except maybe Bill Clinton, Heidi Cruz has become a mainstay on the campaign trail, actively working behind the scenes or publicly defending her husband’s policy positions.
Her career trajectory followed a similar path to her husband’s — early political activism, Ivy League education, Washington career. That career has been put on hold, and by most accounts, Heidi Cruz is one of the driving engines in the campaign of her husband.
“Heidi and Ted are a dynamic duo,” said Don Willett, a Texas Supreme Court Justice who has known the couple since 2000. “If Ted is Type A, Heidi is Type A+. But it’s energy and passion in service of higher things — of putting others first.”
Heidi Cruz recently felt the sting of this year’s contentious presidential campaign when she was dragged into a dispute between her husband and Trump. Trump retweeted an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz after a super PAC unrelated to Cruz published an ad with a suggestive photo of the New York billion- aire’s wife, Melania (Trump later told The New York Times the retweet was “a mistake”). The exchange was soon followed by a
National Enquirer story that alleged Cruz has had several extramarital affairs, an allegation he has vehemently denied.
Born in California to professional dentists who would take her on Christian missionary trips to Africa, Heidi Cruz showed an early interest in international affairs and politics. As a student at Claremont McKenna College, she was active with the Claremont College Republicans and accepted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, said Jack Pitney, a Claremont government professor and former mentor.
Heidi met her future husband while working in the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign. She was a policy adviser, and he was on the legal team. They married in 2001, and her trajectory continued, taking her through Harvard Business School, jobs on Wall Street and a high-ranking post with the National Security Council.
For now, Heidi Cruz has put aside her personal career, taking a leave of absence from her job as a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Houston.
Her efforts are paying off in big bucks for the campaign, said Mica Mosbacher, a Houston-based fundraiser and Fox News analyst who has known Cruz for more than a decade. In a Houston fundraising event last fall, Mosbacher witnessed Cruz charm a room of Bush family loyalists. By the end of the night, they were writing checks for Ted Cruz.
“She’s extremely convincing and smart as a whip,” she said. “She could be a candidate in her right.”