User:Geo Swan/Ted Cruz extramarital affairs allegation

The Ted Cruz extramarital affairs allegation was an incident in the United States presidential election, 2016.

Early story

On March 25, 2016, the National Enquirer published a report that then presidential hopeful Ted Cruz had been involved in extramarital affairs with five different women. The report prompted a quick denial from Cruz who immediately declaimed the story as "complete and utter lies" and blamed Donald Trump for "planting" the report, a claim which Trump denied while also noting that the National Enquirer had originally broke the story of John Edwards' extramarital affairs. News of the allegations, and of Cruz's denial, was reported by USA Today, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Politico, New York Magazine, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Mashable, and others.

Later developments

The story developed late in the day on March 25, 2016 with a subsequent investigation by The Daily Beast that discovered allies of Marco Rubio had been circulating information regarding Cruz's sexual history to the New York Times and Washington Post for the previous six months.

Social media reaction

Speculation that the alleged affair resulted in an alleged payment of $500,000 in "hush money" by the Cruz campaign later became a trending topic on Twitter under the hashtag "#CruzSexScandal". In July 2015, a Ted Cruz-affiliated Super PAC, Keep the Promise I, gave $500,000 to rival Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign. The Washington Post at the time noted that the donation was “unusual", but social media commenters noted that a Fiorina staffer was one of the Cruz's alleged mistresses.