Republican US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas announced Monday that he will run for president next year, becoming the first to declare his candidacy and kicking off the 2016 race for the White House.

"I'm running for president and I hope to earn your support!" Cruz posted on Twitter early Monday.

In a 30-second video he posted on the microblogging site, Cruz said it was time to "restore" America and called on young conservatives to support him.

The 44-year-old Tea Party favourite has been a senator since only 2012 and is a longtime critic of US President Barack Obama's administration.

He earned critics even within his own party in recent years when he helped push the US government into a shutdown over budget fights and for opposing Republican leaders on a series of issues.

"It's a time for truth, a time to rise to the challenge, just as Americans have always done," he said in the Twitter video.

"I believe in America and her people, and I believe we can stand up and restore our promise.

Cruz's advisers told US media that he will aim to raise between $40 million and $50 million for his campaign, relying on support from the same ultra-conservative libertarian Tea Party – made up of anti-government, anti-tax, pro-life and pro-gun conservatives – that voted him in as senator in 2012.

On his website, Cruz is described as "a passionate fighter for limited government, economic growth and the Constitution".

Man behind the shutdown

In September 2013, Cruz spoke for more than 21 hours straight to try to block a stop-gap spending bill that would have avoided a crippling government shutdown the following month.

Many fellow Republicans blasted Cruz for convincing Tea Party adherents in the House of Representatives to shut down the government in a doomed quest to defund US President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, the Affordable Care Act.

Cruz's uncompromising positions have often earned him condemnation from leading figures within the Republican establishment.

US veteran and Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, once derided Cruz and other Tea Party lawmakers as "wacko birds on the right".

The criticism has rarely fazed Cruz.

"I don't work for the party bosses in Washington. I work for the people of Texas. And I fight for them," Cruz said in a 2013 interview.

Not born in the US

A Harvard-educated lawyer with a Cuban father and an American mother, Cruz was born not in the United States but in Canada – which could become a key point of contention during his campaign, since US law specifically calls for all presidents to be natural-born US citizens.

And he is a staunch opponent of immigration reform – a key issue in the influential Hispanic community and one that has earned support from both the left and the right.
He responded to Obama's executive action on immigration earlier this year by urging fellow lawmakers to do all they could to block the measure, branding it "an illegal amnesty".

Cruz joined former president George W. Bush's legal team to argue the 2000 Florida presidential recount that saw Bush take the presidency. He later served under Bush in the Justice Department and at the US Federal Trade commission.

In 2003 he returned to Texas and was appointed solicitor general, where he served for five years.

Though the first to officially declare his presidential bid, other Republicans, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio have signaled they might join the race.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee are also potential candidates seeking the populist conservative vote.

A CPAC straw poll conducted in February put Cruz in third place as the Republican party's pick for president, behind Kentucky Senator Paul and Walker.

Bush, the son and brother of former presidents of the same name, came in fifth.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)