Texas Senator Ted Cruz's new add borrows theme from past ad

SIMI VALLEY, CA (KTRK) -- The ad is called Scorpion.

"There is a scorpion in the desert," the ad begins, showing a scorpion scratching its way along a desert rock. It is running in Iowa, NH, Nevada, and South Carolina during the debate on CNN. It will also air after the debate in those same states on Fox News Channel.

It is no accident, that it draws a sharp parallel to an iconic ad from Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign called Bear In The Woods. It warned of communism encroaching on the western world, posing a danger to our way of life in the last days of a Democrat president.

"There is a bear in the woods. For some people the bear is easy to see," it began, showing a large bear pounding through the wilderness.

Scorpion, Cruz's team tells Eyewitness News, has the similar message in that it relates to what it calls radical Islam.

Cruz has often spoken of trying to reignite the enthusiasm of Reagan's 1980 campaign -- what better place to do it, a campaign staffer says, than during a debate at the Reagan library.

Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler tells Eyewitness News the ad buy cost the campaign $33,000, which he calls a bargain given the potential exposure in the first four states to cast their votes in 2016's primaries.