• Strongly Dem (34+?)
  • Likely Dem (?)
  • Barely Dem (?)
  • Exactly tied (?)
  • Barely GOP (?)
  • Likely GOP (?)
  • Strongly GOP (31+?)
  • No Senate race
New polls:  
Dem pickups :  
GOP pickups :  
PW logo McCain Writes Piece for Wrong Pravda House Republicans Angry With Cruz
Fed Stays the Course as Fiscal Showdown Looms Lawmaker Complains About Making $172K a Year
Clinton Says Quinn Was Lucky Does Obama's Approval Rate Matter?

News from the Votemaster

Ted Cruz Releases His Birth Certificate

The junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz (R), has released his Canadian birth certificate, issued by the city of Calgary, Alberta. Here it is:


Ted Cruz' birth certificate

Why might he do such a thing, as he is a senator and it doesn't matter where a senator was born as long as he or she is 30, has been a citizen for 9 years, and lives in the state he or she is representing? The exact text of Art. I, Sec. 3, Clause 3 of the Constitution reads:


No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

Since no one is suggesting Cruz is ineligible to serve in the Senate, he is clearly thinking about running for President in 2016 and wants to get that pesky "natural born citizen" thing out of the way now. It seems to come up with some regularity. John McCain was not born in the United States. He is a Zonian, but both of his parents were American citizens at the time of his birth, which automatically made him a citizen at birth. Mitt Romney was born in Michigan, but his father, George Romney, ran for President in 1968, even though he was born in Mexico to American Mormon missionaries. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii after it became a state, but some people refuse to believe it.

Cruz is a more interesting and complicated case. Most media reports about him have it wrong, so pay attention. Cruz was born on Dec. 22, 1970 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His father, Rafael Cruz, was born in Cuba and fought with Fidel Castro against Fulgencio Batista. The senior Cruz later moved to Canada with his wife (Ted Cruz' mother, Eleanor Darragh), who was born in Wilmington, DL.

Under U.S. law at the time, a baby born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent and a noncitizen parent is automatically a U.S. citizen (and presumably natural born) provided that the citizen parent meets two other conditions as stated here on the State Department's Website. The two conditions are:

  1. The citizen parent must have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before the birth.
  2. Five of those years must have been after the age of 14.

Thus the fact that Cruz' mother was born in Delaware is not sufficient to transmit her U.S. citizenship to her son. She would have to have met the above tests as well. If Cruz is serious about proving his status as a natural born citizen, he needs to document her whereabouts for 10 years in the U.S. from before 1970. It is far from clear what might constitute proof. She graduated from Rice University in 1956, but that diploma probably doesn't state how long she attended Rice. She might have transferred in from the University of Alberta in her senior year.

It is fairly likely that Darragh met the requirements, but Democrats who are tired of Republicans bringing up Obama's birthplace long after he released his long-form birth certificate, could continue to hound Cruz for proof about where his mother lived. That may not be so easy to obtain any more. His mother is still alive, but she may not have saved her utility bills from before 1970.

Cruz has another problem besides finding his mother's phone bills. Since he was born in Canada, he is a natural born Canadian citizen. Some people might even call him an "anchor baby." He can vote in Canada, request a Canadian passport, or run for Parliament. Legally, he could even be President of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada at the same time. Assuming that his mother meets the above physical presence tests, Cruz is a dual national. Now there is nothing in the Constitution or U.S. law that prohibits a dual national from being President, but the "America first" crowd may not be happy with "America tied for first." Cruz can easily renounce his Canadian citizenship and reports say he will do that to get that out of the way so that in 2016 it will be old news.

This whole matter of "natural born citizen" has become absurd, but it is unlikely the Constitution is going to be amended any time soon to delete the words "natural born." Unfortunately for the Republicans, who dogged Obama for years about his birth, they are probably going to have to face years of "Let's see Mom's phone bills."

Lamar Alexander May Get Primary Challenger

Stories about a possible tea party challenger for Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) have been floating around for weeks now. In a sense, Tennessee is fertile ground for a tea party challenge. Unlike states like Nevada, Colorado, and Delaware, where tea party candidates won Senate primaries only to be defeated by Democrats in the general election, Tennessee is a deep red state where any Republican is likely to win the general election absent a major gaffe. Alexander is moderately conservative, but that is not good enough for many in the tea party. They want a Ted Cruz clone.

Adding to the speculation is the announcement by popular Nashville talk radio host Ralph Bristol that a major announcment would be made on his show today. Coupled with a recent Triton poll showing Alexander trailing a "credible conservative candidate" by five points in a primary, it is likely that Alexander will draw one or more primary challengers. Even if a tea party candidate who is far out of the mainstream wins the GOP primary, the Democrats have little chance to pick up this seat as their bench in Tennessee is basically bare. Their only plausible candidate, former governor Phil Bredesen, has said he will not run.

Update: Tennessee state representative Joe Carr announced today that he will challenge Alexander in a primary. Lamar has about $3 million on hand but hasn't faced a serious challenge since his unsuccessful gubernatorial race in 1974. He defeated Democrat Bob Tuke in 2008 by a margin of 2 to 1. Of course, Tuke was running to Alexander's left while Carr will be running to his right, accusing him of the sins of compromise and bipartisanship. In Tennessee, these could be fatal. No matter what, it is going to be a bloody, ideological fight to the death because the winner is sure of a seat in the Senate. Email a link to a friend or share:

---The Votemaster
Aug14 Booker on Track to Become Senator from New Jersey
Aug07 Kentucky and National Politics Get Intertwined
Jul23 Michelle Nunn Pre-Announces Senate Candidacy
Jul23 Liz Cheney to Challenge Sen. Enzi in Wyoming
Jul14 Schweitzer Won't Run for Baucus' Senate Seat
Jul14 Prospective Senate Candidate Sarah Palin Has Never Talked to State Republican Chairman
Jun26 Markey Holds Massachusetts Senate Seat for the Democrats
Jun26 Supreme Court Guts the Voting Right Act
Jun26 Is Ted Cruz Eligible to Be President?
Jun19 McConnell Threatens to Go Nuclear All the Time If He Becomes Majority Leader
Jun04 Lautenberg Dies, Christie on the Spot
Jun04 Rep. Carolyn McCarthy Has Lung Cancer
Jun04 Lautenberg Dies, Christie on the Spot
Jun02 Hagan Gets First Serious Republican Challenger
May19 Virginia Republicans Nominate Ken Cuccinelli for Governor
May19 Karen Handel Joins the Fray in Georgia
May04 Republicans Can't Find Senate Candidate in Iowa
Apr24 Sen. Baucus to Retire
Mar30 Republicans Gear Up for a Battle--with Themselves
Mar27 Sen. Tim Johnson Will Retire
Mar19 Head of the Republican Party Excoriates the Republican Party
Mar01 Latham Declines to Run for Harkin's Senate Seat in Iowa
Feb15 Democrats Avoid Bruising Senatorial Primary in New Jersey
Feb08 Braley Starts Running for Harkin's Seat
Feb02 Scott Brown Will Not Run in Masssachusetts Special Election
Jan27 Tom Harkin to Retire in 2015
Jan27 Rick Hasen: Republicans Won't Gerrymander the Electoral College
Jan27 Poll: Brown Leads Markey by 20 Points in Massachusetts Special Election
Jan26 Saxby Chambliss Won't Seek Reelection
Jan25 Republican-Controlled Blue States Considering Electoral-College Changes
Jan25 Are Robopollsters Cheating?
Jan22 Biden Inaugurated as Vice President Again
Jan22 Virginia Republicans Redistrict While Civil Rights Leader Attends Inauguration
Jan14 New Front Page for 2013-2014
Jan14 Seats Most Likely to Flip
Jan11 Sen. Jay Rockefeller Will Not Run for Reelection in 2014
Dec20 Senate Races 2014 - Part 2
Nov30 Senate Races 2014
Nov23 How Well Did the Pollsters Do?
Nov23 The Season's Almost Over
Nov22 Happy Thanksgiving
Nov21 Iowa Governor Wants to Kill the Ames Straw Poll
Nov21 Jim Messina Tells How Obama Won
Nov21 Massachusetts Democrats Panicking over a Special Election
Nov20 Conservative Republicans Fight Back
Nov20 Saxby Chambliss May Face a Primary Challenge
Nov20 West Tosses in the Towel
Nov20 Eliminating Loopholes Won't Get Us Off the Fiscal Hill
Nov19 Obama's Pollster Dumps on Gallup
Nov19 Rural White Voters Having Trouble Understanding the Election