Heidi Cruz

Short Biography

Heidi Suzanne Cruz (née Nelson; August 7, 1972) is an American investment manager at Goldman Sachs. She is the wife of senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Heidi Suzanne Cruz was born on August 7, 1972 in San Luis Obispo, California, where her parents, Suzanne Jane (Rouhe) and Peter Christian Nelson, a dentist, performed dental work as missionaries for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She accompanied them to Nigeria and Kenya on missionary trips. Her maternal grandfather was Finnish. Cruz announced in fifth grade that she intended to one day attend Harvard Business School, her mother reflecting that she was unsure of how her daughter knew of the school and described her as "driven". Cruz's political interest developed when she traveled to Washington with her parents at age 8, and grew when she was age 12 and read an issue of Time magazine concerning the 1984 presidential election, while working at a bread stand. She graduated with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Claremont McKenna College in 1994. She was active in Claremont McKenna's Republican group and according to her mentor Edward Haley, she had an interest in appointive office. During her time at Claremont McKenna College, she studied abroad at the University of Strasbourg. In 1995, she received a Masters of European Business from Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium and in 2000, she graduated with a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. CareerIn 2003, she worked for the Bush administration on economic policy, eventually becoming the director for the Western Hemisphere on the National Security Council under National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in 2003. Cruz remembered liking her tenure with the Bush administration and found her work to be "personally fulfilling." After commuting to see her husband for a year, she left Washington DC in 2004 to support his run for elective office in Texas. Cruz did not see this as her giving up her career but merely as relocating, and she took her time to become used to the new environment, initially difficult since most of her family was in California and she had several colleagues in New York. In 2005, she joined Goldman Sachs, serving as a private wealth manager and is currently the Region Head for the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman Sachs in Houston. Peter Conway, Cruz's employer, assisted in her recruitment and was impressed by her being among the first to arrive and last to leave, remembering her doing well in a field of men. Conway would later recommend her to lead the office. Cruz used politics to gain common ground with her clients and deployed her husband to join her in meeting with potential investors. She had served as vice president for seven years before the promotion in 2013. She took a leave of absence without pay for her husband's 2016 presidential campaign. Involvement in 2016 campaignTed Cruz said that the decision for him to run a presidential campaign was difficult for his wife, explaining that it was hard for her to make a commitment when already having a successful business career and being the parent of two young children, but that she changed her mind after listening to a CD from her sister-in-law. Cruz was present at her husband's presidential candidacy announcement in March 2015. During the campaign, she has worked to make Senator Cruz appealing to female voters and became the presidential campaign's most prolific fundraiser, making 600 calls over a quarter and aiming to make 30 calls a day, though typically only reaching 20 to 25. Cruz elaborated that her calls were to "max out donors" and on some occasions, could go on for 45 minutes in what she dubbed "a long conversation." Cruz campaign chairman Chad Sweet compared Heidi's working "the phones" to her tenure at Goldman, adding, "There are very few spouses who can get on the phone on a cold call to a prospective donor and make a more compelling case in a personal and effective way than Heidi Cruz." It was later reported that she was making calls based on donor lists provided to her by a super PAC. Cruz attended both the first and second Republican presidential debates, her husband introducing himself during the second debate as "husband to my best friend" and clarifying it was her. Cruz believes she is different from her husband in having a "warm personality" whereas she viewed her husband as being "great one-on-one", "on stage" and "in a small group", but also shy. She has made multiple solo public appearances, campaigning on her husband's behalf. Former George W. Bush administration official Sara Fagen said she was successful in softening her husband's image, which she further argued was essential for "a candidate whose main obstacle to the Republican nomination may be tone and personality", though former Mitt Romney consultant Katie Packer argued her help could only go so far and voters would not support a candidate based on their spouse. In August 2015, when asked what her role would be as First Lady, she expressed an intent to raise "the standard of living for those at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country" as her interest fell on "the economic side". Ted Cruz's father Rafael Cruz has also been involved in the campaign. His involvement, along with Heidi Cruz's, led Katie Glueck of Politico to conclude that out of the presidential candidates, no other had more prolific family involvement than Ted Cruz. Kelly Riddell of The Washington Times noted Cruz was different from most political spouses due to her large role in her husband's campaign, dubbing her an "integral part" of it. In November 2015, she had a two-day trip to Alabama, during which she dropped off the signatures and check required for her husband to appear on the state's ballot to the Alabama Republican Party headquarters in Hoover. Cruz's comment that her husband had "maintained his voting record at the same time in the Senate" was interpreted as being a dig at Marco Rubio's record on voting during his own presidential campaign, and also being a contrast to her husband's position of not making any disparaging comments about other candidates. Two months later in January, Cruz would reaffirm her husband's position and state the campaign was "of issues" and not "personalities", furthering, "We have great respect for all the candidates who have taken this great journey to try and make our country a better place.” That month she also expressed her liking for Donald Trump's television series The Apprentice, an admiration noted while Trump was leading in Iowa polls along with her husband. On December 3, Cruz returned to Texas and filed paperwork for her husband's name to appear on the state ballot. She acknowledged she had previously filed for his name on ballots in previous states, but also said the Cruz campaign had "a campaign strategy that's built to last, and we have built a grass-roots army that this country hasn't seen since Ronald Reagan." It was noted at this time by Patrick Svitek of The Texas Tribune that she had become more visible in the past few months after spending the initial months of the campaign playing a behind-the-scenes role, Cruz shortly afterward making televised, solo appearances on Fox Business Network and KTRK-TV.[42]In January 2016, after her husband's eligibility to run for the presidency was questioned by several other Republicans, [43] Cruz defended his legality, calling the questioning an indication of her husband winning and his contenders and detractors feeling a need to try to defame him as a result. Cruz called her husband's legality indisputable and noted Republican presidential candidates John McCain and George Romney were born in the Panama Canal and Mexico.[44] Cruz would further that her husband had been cleared of any issue regarding his legality in the past, which contributed to her view that his eligibility would not hurt the campaign and that questions over if her husband was a natural born citizen was an "example of distractions."[45]Early voting statesLeading up to the state caucus, Cruz stumped for her husband in Iowa, making a joint appearance with her husband in Keokuk on October 10, [46] having made multiple appearances by December[47] and appearing at the home of Representative James Lyons on January 8.[48][49] Cruz's joint appearances with her husband continued into January when she joined him for the last day of his bus tour around Iowa, telling voters that she hoped they would support him if they had "fallen in love" with him as she had.[50] For New Hampshire, another early primary state, it was reported in January that she would make stops there to rally support for her husband.