Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum Wednesday joined an already crowded field of Republicans who say they will seek the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Speaking at a factory near his boyhood home in the eastern state of Pennsylvania, the 57-year-old former member of Congress announced his second foray into presidential politics.
He sought the Republican nomination in 2012 after representing Pennsylvania first in the U.S. House of Representatives and later in the U.S. Senate until 2007.
Campaigning in 2012, he visited all 99 counties in Iowa before the state’s important caucuses in which he registered a stunning victory over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the party’s eventual nominee.
Despite his strong showing in 2012, Santorum faces another uphill battle in the upcoming race, with well more than a dozen candidates who either have formally entered or are considering entering the race, including former governors Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee, current senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and retired surgeon Ben Carson, many with strong social conservative credentials.
