Due to Senator Ted Cruz’s announcement that he is running for president, we at Campaign On This want to give you a quick bio and campaign finance background on Senator Cruz.

He was elected to the United States Senate in 2012 and became the first Hispanic or Cuban American elected to the Senate from the state of Texas. Cruz is one of three people of Latin American descent in the Senate, along with Republican Marco Rubio of Florida and Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey. Senator Cruz has been assigned to multiple committees, which include the Committee on Armed Services; the Committee on the Judiciary; the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; the Committee on Rules and Administration; and the Special Committee on Aging. He is the first major politician to announce that he will run for the Republican Party nomination in the United States presidential election in 2016. There is speculation that the race for the presidency will be packed with candidates, so fundraising will be important.

Between 2011 and 2014, Senator Cruz’s Campaign Committee raised $18,383,145 and spent a total of $16,771,915. His top five contributors were Club for Growth, Senate Conservatives Fund, Woodforest National Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Lewis. The top five industries that donated to his cause were Republicans/Conservatives, Oil and Gas, Lawyers/Law Firms, Retirees, and Securities and Investment. The breakdown of his fund sources consists of Individual Contributions (74%), PAC Contributions (9%), Candidate self-financing (5%) and Other (12%). Individual Contributions make up a large portion of these funds and are further broken down into two categories: Small Individual Contributions (16%) and Large Individual Contributions (58%). The charts below provide a closer look at these numbers.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas ranks 47th in the Senate with an estimated net worth of $3,171,518 in 2013.

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What are your thoughts on where the fundraising money for Ted Cruz’s campaign came from, and did any of this data surprise you?