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Ames, Iowa -- Drawing hundreds of backers two days before Iowa begins the presidential nominating process, Ted Cruz made an appeal Saturday to Republicans as someone who has consistently stood for conservative principles.

The U.S. senator from Texas joked that he’d been told he couldn’t win because elites in Washington, D.C. despise him.

“I kind of thought that was the whole point of the campaign,” he told the crowd packing a large ballroom at the Gateway Hotel.

“If you think Washington is fundamentally broken, that there is bipartisan corruption … (stopping) that is what this campaign is all about,” he said.

Cruz is second behind real estate mogul Donald Trump in Iowa, according to a polling average calculated by RealClearPolitics.com. The site lists Trump with 31.4%, Cruz with 24.8% and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida with 14.4%.

Monday’s caucus will decide who has the momentum heading into New Hampshire, which holds the first primary in the country a week later. Candidates from both parties have flooded Iowa for a final weekend of campaigning here.

Hundreds lined up to attend the Cruz event, waiting by tables filled with campaign shirts, pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution and a Cruz coloring and activity book for children.

As he’s waged his anti-Washington campaign, Cruz has won backing from prominent conservatives. He was introduced Saturday by radio host Glenn Beck, U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa and Bob Vander Plaats, the chief executive officer of Iowa’s influential Family Leader.

Beck said he hadn’t endorsed anyone before, but decided to publicly back Cruz after he’d proved himself.

“He has done everything that he said he would,” Beck said.

Cruz promised on his first day in office he would rescind “illegal and unconstitutional” executive orders issued by President Barack Obama; open a criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood; end attacks on religious liberty; cancel the Iran nuclear deal; and begin moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

David Johnson of nearby Ankeny came out for Cruz because Cruz has stuck by his guns. He plans to support him in Monday’s caucus.

“He stood up for limited-government conservative principles from day one of him getting in the door,” Johnson said.