Ted Cruz Announces Carly Fiorina As Running Mate

Update: Ted Cruz has announced former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his running mate in the 2016 election, more than two months before the Republican National Convention is scheduled to officially nominate a candidate. “One of the most solemn choices we make is the choice of selecting a vice president,” he began his speech, going on to cite values of knowledge, judgment, and character that would be necessary in a vice president. “After a great deal of time and thought, after a great deal of consideration and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that if I am nominated to be the president of the United States, that I will run on a ticket with my vice presidential nominee, Carly Fiorina,” he said. This article was originally published at 3:15 p.m. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is expected to announce Wednesday that he is choosing former GOP rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Multiple outlets, including Politico, NBC News, and The New York Times, are reporting that Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, will confirm the pick at a 4 p.m. campaign announcement. The move comes after another good night at the polls for front-runner Donald Trump, who won all five states up for grabs in Tuesday's primaries. Cruz currently trails Trump in the overall delegate count by about 400 pledged delegates. Announcing the prospective running mate at this point in the campaign could help Cruz recapture attention as Trump continues to gain momentum and close in on the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. Like Trump, Fiorina is, in many ways, a political outsider. The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard's only foray into politics, prior to the 2016 election, was an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in California in 2010. Fiorina suspended her own presidential campaign on February 10. She has since endorsed Cruz, and appeared as a surrogate on the campaign trail. In January, Fiorina told a reporter that she wouldn't be willing to be a vice presidential candidate. "I am not running for the vice presidency. I am running for the presidency," she said at the time.