Here's why Sen. Ted Cruz just jumped into the presidential race

(Image credit: (Alex Wong/Getty Images))

published 23 March 2015

Forget the "exploratory committee" and seemingly endless "will he, won't he?" tease: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is running for president, and he's officially the first person in the 2016 race. The main reason Cruz just jumped into the race is that he needs the attention and money, explain Margaret Talev, Jonathan Allen, and David Weigel at Bloomberg Politics:

By choosing to mark the official start of his campaign at the Virginia Christian college founded by the late evangelist Jerry Falwell, rather than a venue in his home state, Cruz is signaling he'll court religious conservatives as well as small-government Tea Party activists as he competes to become the lead anti-establishment candidate in the party contest.... While Cruz is unlikely to draw away early support from establishment-aligned hopefuls such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, or Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, his immediate task is to pull supporters away from candidates who've shown strength with evangelical voters. [Bloomberg]

Cruz is also gunning for Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) libertarian-leaning base. Right now, he barely registers on the polls, but that doesn't mean his campaign won't matter. "It's hard to imagine a scenario in which Ted Cruz becomes the Republican nominee," USC political scientist Dan Schnur tells Bloomberg. "It's just as hard to imagine a scenario in which he does not pull the primary debate significantly to the right." Read the entire analysis at Bloomberg Politics.