Florida

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., plans to announce his candidacy for president on April 13 in Miami. That could make Rubio the third Republican senator to enter his party's presidential nomination contest. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to announce his plans April 7 in Louisville. Rubio, 43, is also expected to compete with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is in the midst of a fundraising blitz that could collect $100 million in the first three months of the year. Bush might not announce his campaign until the summer.

New Hampshire

Sen. Ted Cruz, the first and so far only official candidate for president, swept into New Hampshire on Friday eager to embrace the outsider label he has cultivated. "I am amazingly, powerfully profoundly optimistic," the Texas Republican told a cheering crowd at a VFW Post that he'd raked in $1 million within a day after launching his campaign Monday and another $1 million within three days.

Texas

On Friday, Scott Walker toured the Rio Grande Valley by helicopter as a guest of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who, like the Wisconsin governor, has called for more robust security along the U.S. border with Mexico. But improving border security isn't a position that Walker has held for that long, according to a 2013 interview with the Wausau Daily Herald. "You hear some people talk about border security and a wall and all that," he told the Wisconsin newspaper. "To me, I don't know that you need any of that if you had a better, saner way to let people into the country in the first place." While Abbott met with reporters, Walker avoided questions about a Wall Street Journal report that he had told a private dinner of New Hampshire Republicans on March 13 that he supports allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. and eventually become eligible for citizenship.

News services