Do we like Ted Cruz?
Our score: 3 out of 10. Real harm in his own acts on the 2021 election count, marriage equality and climate, with a few decent stands against his own side alongside.
Ted Cruz is the Texas senator who has been a fixture of the Republican right for over a decade, and he's now openly eyeing the top job. On Dan Patrick's podcast he put it plainly: “It's no secret that I want to be president.” He also hosts his own podcast, so he never lacks a microphone.
The big stain is January 2021. On the day of the Capitol riot, Cruz formally objected to counting Arizona's electoral votes alongside Rep. Paul Gosar, starting the process to challenge Joe Biden's win. The objection said the votes “were not under all of the known circumstances, regularly given”, and neither man spelled out what that meant. Lots of people read that as feeding the election-denial fire; his defenders see it as a push for an inquiry.
On people's rights, he told his podcast in 2022 that the Supreme Court's marriage-equality ruling was “clearly wrong when it was decided.” That's a senator saying the legal basis for same-sex marriage should never have stood, which lands badly in this house. On the planet, he chaired a 2015 Senate hearing and repeatedly asserted “no significant warming over the past 18 years”, while comparing scientists who question climate science to Galileo. Climate scientists reject that claim.
Then there's the Cancun saga. During the 2021 Texas winter storm, with millions of Texans short of power and safe water, he flew to Mexico with his family. After the backlash he flew home and said the trip “was obviously a mistake.” At least he owned it, which is more than some of his colleagues manage.
Credit where it's due: in September 2025 he broke with his own side over the FCC chair's threats to broadcasters after Jimmy Kimmel's suspension. He called the FCC's involvement “unbelievably dangerous” and warned it could backfire on conservatives. In March 2026 he also called Tucker Carlson the “single most dangerous demagogue in this country”, over antisemitism he sees spreading on the right. Cop it or not, taking on your own team costs something.
The fact-check record is rough. PolitiFact lists 160 of his claims rated, with 108 of them Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire. His recent bills are a grab-bag, from a Right to Worship Act to a Venezuela resolution and a cormorant control bill, none of which move the needle on the harm test either way.