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Washington Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas announced his bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination Monday in a speech at Liberty University, an evangelical college in Virginia, with a campaign touting policies that will endear him to conservatives and rankle environmentalists.

But even if the Tea Party firebrand manages to capture the GOP nomination which many say is a long shot his skepticism on climate change could complicate his presidential hopes.

Staking a position on climate change is a dilemma facing many GOP presidential hopefuls. The party lacks a coherent message on the issue, which is increasingly important to the US electorate. While Republicans have been clear and aggressive in pursuing energy policies that foster domestic oil and gas production, the party has been less uniform about how or even if emissions from those sources should be curtailed. The majority of voters and, critically for Cruz, most Republicans back government action to curb global warming, according to a January New York Times poll.

I think there will be a political problem for the Republican Party going into 2016 if we dont define what we are for on the environment, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, who has worked on climate legislation with Democrats, told Roll Call in November. I dont know what the environmental policy of the Republican Party is.

Though he voted for an amendment in January stating climate change is real, Mr. Cruz has repeatedly questioned the role humans play in it. Cruz has said global warming is not supported by data, despite scientific consensus to the contrary. And though questioning climate science polls poorly with the general electorate only 27 percent were more likely to vote for a candidate staking such a position the New York Times poll found 49 percent of Tea Party voters were more likely to pick a candidate who avoids taking a stand on climate change.

In other words: It recruits more Tea Partyers than it repels, Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University and author of the survey, told the New York Times.

Enter Cruz, whose path to the White House will require a groundswell of Tea Party support.

"I just came back from New Hampshire, where there's snow and ice everywhere, Cruz told Seth Meyers on Late Night last week, responding to a question about climate change. My view on this is simple: Debates on this should follow science and should follow data, and many of the alarmists on global warming, they have a problem because the science doesn't back them up.

Democrats have slammed Cruz for his skepticism, saying his doubts undermine his entire candidacy.

That man betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of the existing scientific data, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) of California said on "Meet the Press" Sunday, the day before Cruz formally announced his candidacy. Its shocking and I think that man has rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office.

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Ted Cruz: Can a climate change skeptic win in 2016? (+video)