Ted Cruz, a master orator, has angered his elders in both parties for showing little deference to seniority. (AFP)
Once reviled by fellow Republicans as a "wacko bird" eager to shut down the US government, Ted Cruz now aims to outmanoeuvre rivals and bring his Tea Party conservatism straight into the White House.
With the Iowa caucuses looming Monday, Cruz is locked in a tight contest with frontrunner Donald Trump for their party's presidential nomination.
But Cruz, who has fought hard to maintain a prominent place for faith in American life, also sees himself in a battle for the very soul of the nation.
As a freshman in the US Senate, the 45-year-old Texan -- an intellectual proponent of a grassroots movement that has simmered for years under the Republican mainstream -- has barely three years under his belt in Washington.
But in the 2016 presidential race, his outsider status has played well with the right-wing base furious with what he derides as the "mushy middle" GOP establishment unwilling to play hardball against US President Barack Obama.
For Democrats, Cruz is a dangerous demagogue they love to hate.
To religious conservatives, he is a patriot, a thinking man's champion of the common folk sent to Congress -- and perhaps to the White House -- to disrupt the ways of the go-along-to-get-along establishment and fulfill the principles of smaller government.
He has since become the movement's north star, but critics blast him as a posterboy for Washington gridlock.
Cruz, a master orator with a clear sense of mission, has angered his elders in both parties for showing little deference to seniority and snatching the spotlight from more experienced political stalwarts.
He insists the government has wrecked the economy, infringed on religious liberty, put constitutional rights "under assault," overtaxed Americans and sought to take away their guns.
"We know how to fix this. And it's to get Washington to stop screwing it up," he told a conservative event last year.
In September 2013, his conservative star power soared when he spoke for 21 hours straight to try to block a stopgap spending bill in the lead up to a crippling shutdown the following month.
Many Republicans blasted Cruz for convincing Tea Party adherents in the House of Representatives to shut down government in a doomed quest to defund Obama's crowning domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act.
Cruz's apparent eagerness to gum up the works led an exasperated John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, to deride Cruz and other Tea Party lawmakers as "wacko birds on the right."
From Harvard To The HillA Texas-raised, Harvard-educated lawyer with a Cuban father and an American mother, Cruz joined the legal elite when he was accepted as a clerk for US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 1996.
He was part of former president George W. Bush's legal team arguing the 2000 Florida presidential recount, later serving in Bush's Justice Department and the US Federal Trade commission.
He returned to Texas and in 2003 was appointed solicitor general, arguing many cases before the Supreme Court in Washington.
In 2012, he ran for Senate with support from the anti-government, anti-tax Tea Party, defeating the establishment Republican and then steamrolling his Democratic opponent in the election.
Cuban-American Cruz may enjoy plenty of support in Hispanic-heavy Texas, but he is a staunch opponent of immigration reform.
He blasted Obama's efforts last year to shield millions from deportation as "illegal amnesty," and feuds with fellow candidate Senator Marco Rubio -- whose parents immigrated to the US from Cuba -- over who can clamp down harder on illegal immigration.
A Run From The RightFor millions of conservatives outside the US capital, the staunchly unapologetic Cruz is a hero, and he has fired up the base during his run.
Cruz found himself in a crowded running lane: retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, ex-senator Rick Santorum and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee have sought the far-right conservative vote. Cruz has outshone them all.
Only Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate tycoon who has refashioned himself as a conservative populist, now stands in his way of securing the nomination -- or at least winning Iowa.
With Trump upending the political playbook and launching personal attacks on his rivals, including Cruz, the Texan pledged not to sink "into the mud" in a battle of insults.
"I think issues and substance, policy and vision and record should be the meat of politics," he said during Thursday's Republican debate, which Trump boycotted.
Trump has hammered Cruz over his Canadian birth, suggesting bluntly that Cruz may not be eligible for the presidency.
It has emerged as a point of contention in the campaign, but Cruz insists he is a natural-born citizen.
Cruz pledges to "stitch together a winning majority" by bringing together conservatives, libertarians and evangelicals, who are all-important in Iowa.
How will voters know that he is the candidate who will defend life, traditional marriage and religious liberty?
"Pray on it," he suggested on Thursday.