WASHINGTON
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday became the first candidate to formally announce his bid for the American presidency.
"I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America, and that is why today I am announcing that I'm running for president of the United States," Cruz, a hardline conservative, said during his announcement speech Monday morning at Liberty University in Virginia.
Founded by conservative pastor Jerry Falwell, Liberty University claims to be the largest evangelical Christian university in the world.
Capturing the religious conservative vote will be a crucial step for Cruz. The latest CNN/ORC poll found the hardline conservative polling at just 4 percent, far behind Republican front-runner and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush who took 16 percent.
Not surprisingly, the tea party Republican framed much of his announcement speech around religious values and an imposing federal government.
"Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values," Cruz said, bemoaning the fact that half of born-again Christians, which are predominantly Evangelicals, do not vote.
During his three years in the Senate, Cruz has been an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama, leading efforts to derail the president’s health care reform initiative, and being one of the main figures behind the 2013 government shutdown.
The health care overhaul was only one of several of the president’s initiatives that Cruz sought to lambast. He also took aim at gun control efforts, gay marriage, and Obama’s executive actions on immigration reform that seek to provide protections to nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants.
"Instead of a federal government that works to undermine our values, imagine a federal government that works to defend the sanctity of human life, and to uphold the sacrament of marriage," he said. "Instead of the lawlessness and the president's unconstitutional executive amnesty, imagine a president that finally, finally, finally secures the borders."
Cruz also defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid ongoing strains in relations with the White House, calling on the audience to imagine a president who "stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel."
He was one of 47 Senators who sent a letter to Iran warning the Islamic republic not to ink a nuclear deal with the U.S. that isn't approved by the Senate.
Cruz has also proven to be a thorn in the side for establishment Republicans who he criticizes for being too enmeshed in Washington’s politics. That has caused him to be at odds with his own party at times, particularly during the 2013 government shutdown when he led a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor to hold off a funding vote for the federal government that included money for Obama's health care overhaul.
If elected, Cruz would be the first Hispanic to assume the U.S.’s top office. He was born to an American mother and a Cuban-American immigrant in Alberta, Canada.
Despite being born outside of the U.S., it appears that Cruz would not be in violation of the U.S.' Constitution's Natural-Born Citizen Clause for American presidents.
"The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion appears to support the notion that 'natural born citizen' means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship 'at birth' or 'by birth,' including any child born 'in' the United States, the children of United States citizens born abroad, and those born abroad of one citizen parents who has met U.S. residency requirements," the Congressional Research Service wrote in 2009.
Before entering the Senate in 2012, Cruz was a practicing lawyer with a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Princeton University.
