Ted Cruz, Republican presidential hopeful, taps Carly Fiorina as vice-president
Fiorina endorsed Cruz earlier in the year after dropping out of presidential nomination race
Texas Senator Ted Cruz has tapped former rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, calling her an "extraordinary leader."
Cruz made the formal announcement Wednesday afternoon in Indianapolis, before introducing Fiorina.
"Carly isn't intimated by bullies," he declared, adding, "Over and over again, Carly has shattered glass ceilings."
Cruz is trying to generate momentum for his struggling campaign. Republican front-runner Donald Trump swept primaries in five eastern states on Tuesday.
Fiorina, 61, endorsed Cruz earlier in the year after abandoning her own presidential bid in February, a day after collecting only four per cent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary.
Fiorina became the first female executive of AT&T in 1980, and has also served as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
She immediately went after Trump and Hillary Clinton at the rally in Indiana — a state Cruz must win next week in order to keep his White House hopes alive — vigorously embracing the aggressive role as the possible vice-president.
She cast Trump and Clinton as a pair of liberals who would do little to shake up Washington.
"They're not going to challenge the system — they are the system," Fiorina said.
Fiorina pick 'dumb,' says Trump
Trump criticized a Fiorina pick as "ridiculous" and "dumb" even before it was announced.
"First of all, he shouldn't be naming anybody because he doesn't even have a chance," the New York billionaire said in a Wednesday interview on Fox News.
"Naming Carly's dumb, because Carly didn't do well. She had one good debate — not against me by the way, because I had an unblemished record of victories during debates — but she had one victory on the smaller stage and that was it," Trump said.
He added, "She's a nice woman. I think that it's not going to help him at all."
However, Trump had previously faced backlash after he was quoted in a Rolling Stone profile insulting Fiorina's appearance.
"Look at that face!" Trump was quoted saying. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!"
In an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in December 2015, Republican voters were more likely to say they had a favourable than an unfavourable view of Fiorina by a 47 per cent to 20 per cent margin, with 32 per cent unable to give a rating.
Among all Americans, 45 per cent didn't know enough about Fiorina to rate her, while 22 per cent rated her favourably and 32 per cent unfavourably.
By contrast, both Cruz and Trump have high negative ratings even within their own party, according to an April AP-GfK poll. Among Republican voters, 52 per cent have a favourable and 41 per cent have an unfavourable opinion of Cruz, while 53 per cent have a favourable and 46 per cent have an unfavourable opinion of Trump.
Among all Americans, 59 per cent had an unfavourable opinion of Cruz and 69 per cent said that of Trump.
