Days before a winter storm was projected to blanket the U.S. South in snow in late January 2026, social media users shared a picture they claimed showed Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, traveling to the California coast ahead of the storm.
For example, on Jan. 20, a user named Shea Jordan Smith — whose social media profiles said the user lived in Houston — posted the claim with a picture showing Cruz on a United Airlines flight on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived). The posts read, "Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was spotted earlier today, January 20, 2026, on a plane heading to Laguna Beach as the state of Texas braces for a rare ice threat and arctic cold front."
Other users engaged with Smith's posts and shared the photo. A Snopes reader emailed, "Is this for real?"
Snopes called Cruz's offices and emailed his communications director to ask about the photo and claim. By email, we received a statement attributed to a spokesperson for the senator, reading: "Senator Cruz is currently on pre-planned work travel that was scheduled weeks in advance. He will be back in Texas before the storm is projected to hit."
We asked if Cruz's office could confirm specifics of the destination, purpose of his work and date of his expected return to Texas. His office responded only, "You have the tweet with the pic. Storm is projected to hit on Saturday, he'll be there before then."
We also reached out to Smith to ask about the origins of the photo and will update this report if we receive further information.
Cruz in Cancún, Greece and Jamaica
This claim bore similarities to when Cruz traveled to Cancún, Mexico, as a winter storm hit Texas in February 2021, as well as the time he — according to a report from The Washington Post citing anonymous sources — traveled to Jamaica over the Fourth of July holiday in 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In July 2025, The Texas Tribune reported Cruz traveled home from a family vacation in Greece following that month's deadly flash floods in Texas.
For further reading, we previously reported Cruz truly said in 2016 of future President Donald Trump, "We're liable to wake up one morning and Donald, if he were president, would have nuked Denmark."