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CLAIM
The net worth of Ted Cruz went from $ 500,000 when he entered the Senate in 2013 to $ 4.6 million, with a salary of $ 174,000 a year.
EVALUATION
ORIGIN
With only three weeks left until the 2018 midterm elections, a CNN poll revealed Republican candidate Ted Cruz was seven percentage points ahead of Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke among likely Texan voters in the polls. the race to the seat of Senator Cruz de Cruz.
As contestants clashed in debates and TV commercials, social media users shared partisan memories to influence readers for or against one or the other of the candidates, based on their preferences. These memes were often more based on fiction than facts.
One of these memes sought to create a problem related to Ted Cruz's wealth, claiming that his net worth had increased considerably during his tenure in the Senate, despite his fixed salary from the government:
Ted Cruz has added $ 4 million in net worth over six years. What did he do for you in Texas?#VoteBlue pic.twitter.com/th6dzeR8uz
– Roland John (@ JohnBar39844923) October 13, 2018
As far as we can judge, the only figure indicated by the meme is Cruz's salary. According to the US Senate website, all sitting senators (excluding chiefs) earn $ 174,000 a year.
We found no reliable source that Cruz's net worth is $ 4.6 million. According to the most recent estimate, we were able to find (according to an article of October 4, 2018 in the Texas Tribune), Cruz's financial disclosure forms indicated that in 2017, he and his wife Heidi (general manager of investment company Goldman Sachs) had $ 2 million to $ 5 million in assets (including shares, mutual benefits, pension benefits and partially repayable loan for Cruz's 2012 election campaign). They also had liabilities ranging from $ 1 million to $ 5.3 million. By subtracting liabilities from the asset, one obtains an estimated net worth of no more than $ 4 million. The actual number could be significantly lower, or even negative.
Although the $ 4.6 million amount cited in the brief is not implausible, we do not know how it was obtained or by whom. We were also unable to determine the source of the other amount cited – Cruz's alleged net worth of $ 500,000 in 2012 -. According to the reference source of these evaluations, OpenSecrets.org (the website of the Center for Responsible Politics), Cruz was already worth about 3.74 million dollars in 2012.
It is important to note that we only have estimates to work on. Applicants are required to disclose assets, liabilities, transactions, gifts, repayments and certain types of expenses on their personal financial disclosure forms, but not their overall net worth. In addition, they are asked to report these amounts in terms of high and low ranges and not exact figures. Here's how OpenSecrets.org gets an estimated net worth for each candidate:
The monetary values of assets and liabilities are presented in ranges rather than in exact amounts. These ranges are narrow enough for the smallest values but become very large for the largest values. For example, a low value range is $ 15,000 to $ 50,000, while a high value range is $ 5 to $ 25 million. For this reason, we provide on our website a minimum possible net worth and a maximum possible net worth for each registrant. We determine the average wealth of each individual by totaling all of their listed assets to their maximum and again to their minimum value, and subtracting from all reported liabilities, always at their maximum and minimum possible value. From the figures obtained, we determine the average.
Here are the annual estimates of Ted Cruz's net worth by OpenSecret.org between 2011 and the last year for which they analyzed the data, 2015:
- 2011: $ 1.84 million
- 2012: $ 3.47 million
- 2013: $ 2.3 million
- 2014: $ 3.39 million
- 2015: $ 3.8 million
Thus, although Cruz's estimated net worth may have increased after entering the Senate in 2013, it does not appear that the increase was as dramatic as that described, nor particularly shocking, given that his wife was the main supporter of the family most of that time. .
In fact, Heidi Cruz inadvertently provided more food for partisan attacks against the couple's wealth by suggesting in an interview in October 2018 with the Atlantic that they could not afford to buy a second home so soon. The subject was raised during a discussion about the difficulties of being the wife of a senator:
It may be a way for Heidi to avoid a truth she has learned as a political wife: this life is getting worse and worse. Another term in the Senate means six more years that her husband will no longer live at home. That means more family talk about why daddy can not go to school on Wednesday for the meeting with Caroline's new teachers. This means that Heidi works 70 hours a week, not only because she wants it, but also because she has to.
"I really believe that what he does is mission-oriented," she said. But "it takes a bit of support, you know. It's been six or seven years, and I'm the main breadwinner – it's like, "Uh, yes, that's when people say thank you. I will now take this assessment. She laughed. "Yes, it's been seven years and we will not buy a second home anytime soon."
Leftist commentators have tried to sow the class's resentment by describing it as a "complaint" about her husband's six-figure salary, but it's a two-way bet. As a recent Associated Press analysis pointed out, Cruz's challenger, Democrat Beto O'Rourke, had an estimated net worth of $ 9 million in 2015, more than double that of Cruz.
We asked for comments from Senator Cruz's re-election campaign, but we have not yet received a response.
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