He was a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. His rise in popularity was based on the public being captivated by the life story of his father Rafael Cruz, a native of Cuba. Rafael Cruz's life story claims that he fought for four years in the Cuban Revolution on the side of Fidel Castro, was arrested and tortured and then fled to the US on a four-year student visa. Arriving in Texas with just the clothes on his back and $100 sewn in his underwear, Rafael Cruz claims he obtained a social security number and got a job washing dishes seven days a week for fifty cents an hour, using his earnings to pay his four years at the University of Texas.