Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will officially seek the White House in 2016, he announced in front of large crowd of students Monday morning.

The Texas senator, who is currently serving his first term in the U.S. Senate, is the first high-profile name to join what will likely become a crowded field of Republican candidates seeking the highest office in the nation.

“I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America,” Cruz said in front of a crowd of thousands at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. “That is why today I am announcing that I am running for President of the United States.”

He first announced his intention to run on his personal Twitter account late Sunday night.

“It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty. It is a time to reclaim the constitution of the United States,” Cruz said during his speech. He spent most of the speech laying out a vision supporters will see during his campaign.

Cruz, 44, served as solicitor general of Texas from 2003 until 2008, before moving to higher posts in Washington D.C., serving at the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.

Cruz was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, easily winning his first election to high office with 56 percent of the vote.

He has shown himself to be a firebrand conservative while serving and identifies as a tea party Republican.

As a freshman senator, Cruz led efforts in Washington — sometimes butting heads with his party’s leadership — that have been applauded by conservatives nationwide.

Most notably, Cruz was seen as a leader of the 16-day government shutdown in October of 2013 following his marathon speech in opposition to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, commonly known has Obamacare.

Mack Shelley, professor of political science, said Cruz will likely spend time criticizing policies that will amp up the base. Two specifics he mentioned during his speech Monday were Obamacare and educational standards known as Common Core.

Cruz has already visited the early presidential caucus and primary states, making several trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina during the past two years as a senator.

Cruz appeared at U.S. Rep. Steve King’s, R-Iowa, “Iowa Freedom Summit,” in late January that attracted almost a dozen potential candidates. Most recently, Cruz attended Bruce Rastetter’s “Iowa Agriculture Summit,” which also brought potential candidates several weeks ago.

At the Agriculture Summit, Cruz made headlines as one of the Republicans opposed to the Renewable Fuel Standard, a mandate that deals with how ethanol and biodiesel are blended into fuel. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has been a dedicated supporter of the standards.

“He might get into some hot water in Iowa about things like the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Shelley said. “There is a split [in the Republican Party]. He’ll be in the middle of it about if we want to do more ethanol production, or whether we don’t want that kind of government interference.”

The latest Iowa poll from The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics shows Cruz has some ground to gain. In the poll, Cruz had support from just 5 percent of likely caucus voters, placing him in seventh place.

“There could be a dozen or more names on the Republican side, so not to be just one in a list of names, you’ve got to have something that makes you different,” Shelley said. “But he comes out very strongly, he’s very unapologetic. A lot of people in the tea party wing of the Republican party, and evangelical voters really appreciate that.”

Cruz is married to his wife, Heidi, whom he met while working on President George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. The couple have two children and resides in Houston, Texas.