Texas Sen. Ted Cruz announces 2016 presidential run

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign Monday, making him the first high-profile Republican to formally enter the 2016 race.

Cruz, 44, announced his candidacy for the 2016 Republican nomination in a 30-second video message embedded in a tweet shortly after midnight Sunday.

“I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support!” he tweeted.

Cruz was expected to announce his bid during a speech at Liberty University in Virginia, an evangelical Christian school established by the late Jerry Falwell, according to media reports.

The Tea Party darling has made no secret throughout his two years in the U.S. Senate of his ambitions to hold higher office, and in recent months has consistently hinted he’d enter the 2016 presidential contest.

A strategist for Cruz confirmed the news of the announcement to the Associated Press on Sunday afternoon, hours after the Houston Chronicle first reported the bid.

Cruz’s entrance is sure to be only the first of many in what promises to be a crowded field for the Republican nomination.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul are all but guaranteed to also jump into the fray over the coming weeks and months.

Cruz, a favorite among the GOP’s conservative base, hasn’t registered strongly in early polling, but his appeal among the Tea Party wing of the GOP could make him a force to be reckoned with in the debates.

A recent Real Clear Politics average of the latest polls indicated that Cruz garnered only 4.6% of the support of likely Republican voters nationwide, and just 4.3% and 4.4% of the support of likely GOP voters in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively.

Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, quickly establishing himself as an uncompromising conservative willing to take on Democrats and Republicans alike.

Criticized by members of his own party at times, he has won praise from Tea Party activists for leading the GOP's push to shut down the federal government during an unsuccessful bid to block funding for President Barack Obama's health care law.

Two lawyers who represented presidents from both parties at the U.S. Supreme Court recently wrote in the Harvard Law Review that Cruz, born in Canada, meets the constitutional standard to run.

Cruz has said he would retain his Senate seat through early 2019 if he fails to win the presidency.