Rick Jervis

USA TODAY

Heidi Cruz is a visible force at campaign events for her husband, Ted Cruz — waving from the stage, often with the couple’s two young daughters in tow, wooing big-dollar donors and chatting with voters at campaign stops.

More so than any other candidate’s spouse, except maybe Bill Clinton, Heidi Cruz has become a mainstay on the campaign trail, actively working behind the scenes or publicly defending her husband’s policy positions.

Her career trajectory followed a similar path to her husband’s — early political activism, Ivy League education, Washington career. But that career has been put on hold and, now, by most accounts, Heidi Cruz is one of the driving engines in the campaign of her husband, who has emerged as the main GOP alternative to front-runner Donald Trump.

“Heidi and Ted are a dynamic duo,” said Don Willett, a Texas Supreme Court Justice who has known the couple since 2000. “If Ted is Type A, Heidi is Type A+. But it's energy and passion in service of higher things — of putting others first.”

After insulting tweet, Cruz tells Trump: Leave my wife 'the hell alone'

Heidi Cruz recently felt the sting of this year’s contentious presidential campaign when she was dragged into a dispute between her husband and Trump. Trump retweeted an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz after a super PAC unrelated to Cruz published an ad with a suggestive photo of Trump’s wife, Melania.

The exchange was soon followed by a National Enquirer story that alleged Cruz has had several extramarital affairs, an allegation he’s vehemently denied. “This garbage does not belong in politics,” he told reporters recently while campaigning in Wisconsin.

Ted Cruz blames Donald Trump for 'Enquirer' affairs story

Born in California to dentist professionals who would take her on Christian missionary trips to Africa, Heidi Cruz showed an early interest in international affairs and politics. As a student at Claremont McKenna College, she was active with the Claremont College Republicans and accepted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, said Jack Pitney, a Claremont government professor and former mentor to Heidi Cruz.

She interned with former congressman Jerry Lewis and attended the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, he said. “She was a terrific student,” Pitney said. “Very focused, with a strong interest in international affairs.”

He added: “I’d be just as happy if she were running for president, and he was the spouse.”

Heidi Cruz met her future husband while working in the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign. She was a policy adviser and he was on the legal team. They dated and married in 2001, but her trajectory continued, taking her through Harvard Business School, jobs on Wall Street and a high-ranking post with the National Security Council.

Before he was an outsider, Ted Cruz was inside famous recount fight

In 2004, she moved to Texas to be closer to her husband, then the state’s solicitor general — a move that would cause her personal distress. At 10 p.m. on Aug. 22, 2005, an Austin Police officer was dispatched to the on-ramp of Mo-Pac Expressway, a busy Austin thoroughfare, after a caller had seen a woman on the side of the highway “sitting in the area with her head in her hands,” according to a heavily redacted police report of the incident.

The woman identified herself as Heidi Cruz and said she lived a few blocks away. The officer drove her away to an unnamed facility.

In his book, A Time for Truth, Ted Cruz admits the move from Washington to Texas was hard on his wife and himself. “The adjustment led to her facing a period of depression, which was really difficult for us both,” he writes.

For now, Heidi Cruz has put aside her personal career, taking a leave of absence from her job as a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Houston and turning her focus to helping her husband win the White House.

Having such a strong presence in a spouse gives the Cruz campaign an advantage over others, said Mike Baselice, an Austin-based Republican pollster. “She has a presence with fundraisers,” he said. “She doesn’t have to be in the same room with her spouse. They cover more ground that way.”

Heidi Cruz’s efforts are paying off in the form of big bucks for the campaign, said Mica Mosbacher, a Houston-based fundraiser and Fox News analyst who has known Heidi Cruz for more than a decade. Heidi Cruz's connections, experience and personality give her a unique set of skills to draw big money from high-value donors, she said.

In a Houston fundraising event last fall, Mosbacher witnessed Heidi Cruz charm a room full of Bush family loyalists with personal stories and policy insights. By the end of the night, they were writing checks for Ted Cruz.

“She’s extremely convincing and smart as a whip,” she said, adding: “She could be a candidate in her right.”

Elections 2016 | USA TODAY Network