Senator Ted Cruz becomes the first Republican to officially announce that he is running for president in 2016, making his announcement a few minutes after the stroke of midnight Monday morning.

While we here at the Shark Tank were tipped off the announcement would come by the end of the month, we weren’t expecting it today.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and surgeon Ben Carson have already announced that  that they were  officially exploring the idea of running for president, while others like Marco Rubio are expected to announce their presidential bids in the coming weeks, are still holding out.

Rubio’s presidential bid is said to be announced within the next couple of weeks, and no later than the first week of April.

While  Cruz has been consistent with his  position on immigration reform, Rubio has not.  Cruz  is expected to take conservative votes and volunteers away from Rubio, who has fallen out of favor with many grassroots conservatives  in Florida and in South Carolina for his questionable flip-flop on immigration reform,

Here is Cruz’s announcement video.

 

I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support! pic.twitter.com/0UTqaIoytP

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 23, 2015