- The marquee Senate race between Colin Allred and Ted Cruz could reveal a lot about Texas' identity.
- The Lone Star State has been a GOP bastion for decades, but voting shifts are changing that dynamic.
For decades, Democrats have sought to reclaim their former glory in Texas, but they've repeatedly come up short.
The party hasn't won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994, which has largely deprived it of the sort of bench that Republicans have cultivated for years through their dominance of state government.
So when Rep. Colin Allred — a three-term lawmaker who represents the Dallas-area 32nd Congressional District — entered this year's Senate contest against two-term Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, many Democrats felt that his bipartisan credentials would bolster his run.
Allred, 41, believes that he can be a change agent for Texas. And with less than a week to go before the election, he remains locked in a competitive contest with the 53-year-old Cruz.
A late October New York Times/Siena College survey showed Cruz with a four-point edge over Allred (50% to 46%) among likely voters, but in the same poll, former President Donald Trump led Vice President Kamala Harris by ten points (52% to 42%). And other polls of the race, including ones from Marist College, Morning Consult, and the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs, all showed Cruz with single-digit leads.
The competitiveness of the race led the Senate Majority PAC — the Democratic political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York — to pour $5 million into the contest in recent days, as the Texas race is now widely viewed as the party's best opportunity to flip a red seat this year. In total, Allred has raised more than $80 million for the Senate race, according to his campaign.
But one key fact remains: Allred will have to overcome the state's Republican lean in order to oust Cruz.
Reproductive rights and the economy
I sat down with Allred before a recent block walk kickoff event in Houston, where the former NFL player and civil rights attorney laid out his case against Cruz's reelection bid.
But something significant stuck out during our conversation.
In the past, red-state Democrats often shied away from speaking out too forcefully regarding reproductive rights. However, after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court, along with the passage of Texas' strict abortion ban, Allred lambasted "extremism" that he argued would seriously affect the economy.
In the Times/Siena poll, likely voters in Texas ranked the economy as their top issue, with 27% of respondents expressing this opinion. (The second-and- third ranked issues were immigration and abortion, with 15% support for each issue.)
"The individual stories of people denied miscarriage care or denied care when pregnancies weren't viable and having to leave the state are horrific," Allred told me after he spoke at a reproductive rights-focused rally headlined by Harris, which also featured an appearance by Beyoncé. "I know many of these women that have come forward. It's personal. It's also impacting every other aspect of Texas life, from our medical schools to our universities to our business climate."
The electoral map
In 2018, then-Rep. Beto O'Rourke traversed Texas during his Senate campaign and in the process visited all of the state's 254 counties.
While Cruz eventually won, he bested O'Rourke by only 2.6 percentage points, or by roughly 215,000 votes out of more than 8.3 million ballots cast.
O'Rourke's campaign that year worked to energize Democratic voters — with a focus on young and progressive voters — and his town hall events became a signature part of his campaign.
Allred's campaign approach is a bit different than the one pursued by O'Rourke, who represented the El Paso area in Congress from 2013 until 2019. He's seeking to maximize Democratic turnout as well, but he's conducted serious outreach to independents and Republicans to be a part of his moderate-minded campaign.
"I have a record of being the most bipartisan Texan in Congress," he told me during our conversation.
It's the sort of ethos that Allred takes with him on the campaign trail across Texas, a behemoth of a state that contains huge cities and scores of medium-sized and smaller cities and towns in between. It can take around thirteen hours to drive across Texas from the east to the west.
"This is a massive state, and what happens in one part of the state is not always known in the other part of the state," Allred told me, adding of his experience: "I don't come across any Texans who are looking for a handout, but I come across Texans who are looking for somebody who's going to be on their side."
Democrats in Texas already perform strongly in cities like Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. But in the Trump era, Democrats have also increasingly won over more suburban voters, a phenomenon that has helped the party immensely in other Sun Belt states like Arizona and Georgia. And if Allred is to defeat Cruz, he'll have to put up extremely strong numbers with suburban voters across the board.
Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, told me in a interview that Cruz is in a tougher spot compared to other Texas Republicans because he lacks substantial "crossover" support. Republicans for decades have flexed their political muscle in the state based on their strong support from the party faithful and conservative-leaning independents.
But Cruz, a onetime GOP presidential candidate, has cut a polarizing profile both in Texas and on the national stage.
"He doesn't have much appeal to the sort of soft Republicans, independents, and moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the same way that Gov. Greg Abbott or Sen. John Cornyn do," Jones said. "And it's not a large amount, but he starts off at a disadvantage in that he needs to pretty much win all of the Republican vote and make sure that Republicans turn out."
Cruz 'too small' for Texas
On the campaign trail, Allred has targeted Cruz's infamous 2021 trip to Cancún, Mexico, which occurred while many Texans were without power due to a severe winter storm.
During our conversation, Allred depicted Cruz as someone who doesn't have a broader vision for one of the fastest-growing states in the country, which now boasts over 30 million residents.
Business Insider has reached out to the Cruz campaign for comment.
"Texas is incredibly diverse and dynamic, but we have been governed by extremists who I think have put at risk all of the positives about our state," Allred told me. "Ted Cruz, in particular, is someone who I think is just too small for Texas. His vision is too small for us. And to me, it's kind of the opposite of the Texas that I know."
Allred, who would be the first Black senator from Texas should he defeat Cruz, also spoke about the difficulties of change in a state where Republicans have long held a firm grip on power.
"When you have a one-party rule state for so long, you can get an impression that there's no changing it," Allred told me. "There's always a sense that we should have change. But can we break through?"