LYNCHBURG, Virginia — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Monday became the first major candidate to officially announce a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, pledging to bring a hardline conservative approach to the campaign trail.
“I believe in you and the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America and that is why I am announcing that I am running for the president of the United States,” Cruz said to cheers.
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Cruz delivered his speech at Liberty University to a packed stadium of students, who were required by the school to attend the regular convocation event. They nonetheless gave him a standing ovation as he took the stage, and he garnered plenty of applause throughout the talk. Students kept any snark to their phones, where they filled up anonymous message board app Yik Yak with mid-speech takes. Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. introduced the candidate after the gathering was kicked off by a Christian rock performance.
The senator asked the students over and over again to “imagine” a world in which his agenda had been enacted, including the repeal of Obamacare, the dissolution of the Internal Revenue Service, and a flat tax that Americans pay at the same rate regardless of income — as well as a president who “finally, finally, finally secures the borders.”
The symbolism of the venue was hard to miss. Liberty University is an evangelical hub founded by the late Jerry Falwell Sr., the combative and politically active conservative preacher that John McCain famously called an “agent of intolerance” in his 2000 presidential run. (The two later reconciled for his 2008 race.) By holding his announcement there, Cruz sent a clear signal that he intended to push hard for social conservative votes.
“Today, roughly half of born again Christians aren’t voting, they’re staying home,” Cruz said in his remarks. “Imagine instead, millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.”
His remarks contained plenty of red meat for the evangelical crowd, including lines trumpeting his opposition to abortion and gay marriage and his support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“There wasn’t a single thing I disagreed with in his speech,” Liberty freshman Chandler James told msnbc. “I definitely feel America is headed in the wrong direction now and needs a change.”
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Pacing across the center stage with a headset like a megachurch preacher, Cruz’s speech was as much religious testimony as it was campaign speech. He opened by recounting his biography as the son of a Cuban immigrant and an American mother who was the first in her family to go the college. In the most dramatic moment, he recounted how his father abandoned a 3-year old Cruz and his mother before a conversion to Christianity prompted him to return home.
“Were it not for the transformative love of Jesus Christ … I would have been raised by a single mother,” Cruz said. Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, is an evangelical pastor who has become a fixture at conservative events, where he’s developed a reputation for delivering even more hardline political rhetoric than his son.
It will be a tough task winning social conservative votes in a race that could feature candidates like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, both of whom performed strongly with the same bloc in their respective presidential runs. Even in Cruz’s home state of Texas, he could face competition from former Gov. Rick Perry, who is looking at another run after a weak showing in 2012.








