Senator Ted Cruz, from the state of Texas, has announced that he will seek re-election to the U.S. Senate for a third term in 2024. The Republicans keeping every seat they have right now is vitally important if they want to take over a Senate chamber next year that is currently held by the Democrats with one seat. 

That Senator Cruz's colleague from the state of West Virginia, Democrat Joe Manchin, just recently announced that he would not be seeking re-election, makes it even more critical the Republicans hold their own.

BREAKING: Senator Joe Manchin Announces He Will Not Seek Re-Election

Cruz is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee, where he is ranking member on the Subcommittee on the Constitution.

Sen. Cruz first ran for the Senate in 2012, winning handily against Democrat Paul Sandler with 4.5 million votes (56.4 percent) to Sadler's 3.2 million (40.6 percent). In his first reelection attempt six years later, in 2018, he faced off against former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke. Cruz defeated O'Rourke by a slim margin, 50.9 percent to 48.3 percent, in one of the most expensive campaigns in the history of Senate races.

The senator's announcement comes just days before the first day of filling for the primary in Texas. The primary occurs in the Lone Star state on Tuesday, March 5th, 2024.

Here is the official announcement:

HOUSTON, TX— Today, Senator Ted Cruz officially filed for re-election to the United States Senate.  

Since his election in 2013, Sen. Ted Cruz has worked tirelessly to deliver wins for more than 30 million Texans and has led the fight for Texas and for jobs, freedom, and security in the U.S. Senate. 

Sen. Ted Cruz has authored over 90 legislative measures that have been signed into law, including expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K–12 public, private, and religious education, repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, targeting Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline through multiple bills that halted construction and kept it stalled, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, holding dictatorships in South America accountable, ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve Civil Rights cold cases, and ending the Department of Defense’s unjust COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  

He is also leading the fight in the Senate to support Texas jobs, hold Big Tech accountable to the American people, secure the border, fundamentally reassess the U.S.-China relationship, and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for covering up the coronavirus pandemic, committing human rights atrocities, and engaging in censorship, propaganda, and espionage in the United States.

Senator Ted Cruz said, "I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to once again run for re-election to the United States Senate. It has been the honor of a lifetime to give voice to over 30 million Texans in Washington, D.C., fighting for common-sense ideas, protecting our freedoms, and standing up to corrupt politicians and special interest groups. But the job is far from done. Never before has our country needed strong, conservative leaders more to fight against encroaching leftist ideas and politicians, which is why I will be on the campaign trail day in and day out meeting, listening, and working with Texans all across the Lone Star State to once again win their vote in November 2024.”