Houston — More than a decade after his NFL career ended, Colin Allred still looks like he could burst through the line and sack a cornered quarterback.
At 41 years old, he has started gaining weight around the middle. However, the former linebacker maintains the broad shoulders and barrel chest from his pro football days, which could help the Dallas Senators handle the weight he’s currently carrying.
Democrats are facing a loss of more than two seats and are struggling to maintain their slim control of the Senate, a battle that will see Texas and Mr. Allred face a loss of more than one of his party’s archrivals, the Republican Party. It could depend on whether they try to topple Ted Cruz.
Hail Mary, but not impossible.
In 2018, Mr. Cruz narrowly survived a surprise challenge by then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the genius who became a political folk hero with his edgy, adrenal-fueled adventures. Mr. Cruz then became chin-deep in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, making a horrifying escape to Cancun, Mexico, as millions of Texans shivered in a deadly winter storm. Ta.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks during a debate with challenger Colin Allred in Dallas.
(Shelby Tauber/Texas Tribune)
His opponent this time around is running a different campaign than O’Rourke. F-bombs are prohibited at sweaty gatherings. Skateboarding is prohibited. He won’t be live-streaming from the laundromat as he washes his underwear.
Allred’s message is moderate in tone and politics. He regularly boasts that he is the most bipartisan of Texas’ 40 members of Congress.
“I don’t spend my time throwing bombs,” Allred told hundreds of supporters at Texas Southern University this week, drawing a sharp contrast from his theatrical rival Cruz. I am doing it. “I work hard not because bipartisan politics is the end goal. …That’s how we get things done.”
But even if Allred’s approach is different, the challenges he faces are familiar.
Thirty years after Democrats won a statewide election in Texas, the state is changing politically, but less so than other Southwest states that have turned purple or even blue over the past two decades. Not dramatic. .
The ever-hopeful Democratic Party points out several differences in this election, including the incumbent’s unsavory profile. “Mr. Cruz has an acquired taste even among Republicans,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
The abortion issue has particular resonance under Texas’ strict laws, and could garner cross-sectional support for Allred, especially among independents and suburban women.
“Extreme abortion bans are not theoretical to us,” said Lisa Turner, who leads a political action committee that promotes Democratic candidates and causes. “This is a new lived experience for us.”
Finally, Democrats have suggested that Allred’s candidacy to become Texas’ first black U.S. senator could lead to unprecedented turnout in the state’s vast urban areas.
“This is not killing two birds with one stone,” said Gary Mauro, who served as Texas’ land commissioner in the ’80s and ’90s. This was a time when there was still a possibility for Democrats to be elected to the state legislature. But he’s calm about polls that suggest Allred is within range of Cruz.
“He has a really tough path to get those two or three extra points,” Mauro said.
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Everything needs to go well on Tuesday for Democrats to hold onto the Senate.
They have a narrow 51-49 majority, including four independents who caucus. Democrats are certain to lose West Virginia, making the balance 50-50. If Kamala Harris is elected president, Tim Walz could serve as the tiebreaker as vice president, giving Democrats control.
However, that assumes that several embattled Democratic incumbents will make a comeback, which is by no means certain. Jon Tester’s chances of winning in Montana are looking increasingly remote.
Party strategists are therefore focused on the possibility that Republicans could pick up one or two seats to offset Democratic losses.
One possibility is Nebraska, where political newcomer Dan Osborn is running a surprisingly strong campaign. However, he is running as an independent and has promised to distance himself from both parties if elected. He has made it clear that he will not caucus with the Democratic Party.
This leaves Texas and Allred perhaps the last best hope to maintain control of the Senate.
Colin Allred faces Ted Cruz in a debate in Dallas.
(Shelby Tauber/Texas Tribune)
Alred, who is biracial, was raised by a single mother in North Dallas. He was class president in high school, was active in multiple sports, earned an athletic scholarship to Baylor University, and was captain of the football team. He played four seasons in the NFL with the Tennessee Titans before a neck injury forced him to retire in 2010.
After his playing days ended, Allred earned a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked as an attorney in the Obama administration for the Department of Housing and Urban Development before joining a private firm as a civil rights attorney. In his first presidential bid in 2018, Allred topped a crowded field of Democratic candidates and surprisingly defeated an 11-term Republican incumbent to win the seat he had held ever since.
Allred’s Senate campaign, looking for a second upset, is thankfully short on football metaphors. But there’s a bit of an intimidating atmosphere in the locker room, as the burly former jockey repeatedly insists that Cruz is “too small for Texas.”
Texas Southern University, a historically black university, cited the senator’s recklessness during the 2021 winter storm that hit the state, saying, “If the lights go out in the energy capital of the world… , don’t go to Cancun,” he said, repeating his story. During the candidate’s solo debate, he spoke about his actions on January 6th.
When a mob stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Allred texted his pregnant wife to send him love, then stripped off his suit jacket and went into battle. I headed. Cruz, who amplified Trump’s lies and incited election deniers, was hiding in a supply closet. (He says so in his memoirs.)
“He shouldn’t have been harmed by the mob, don’t get me wrong,” Allred said as the crowd inside the theater’s auditorium jeered. “The problem is, there shouldn’t have been a mob. And if you incite a mob, you should lose your job and not get re-elected.”
The audience roared.
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock has rallied support for fellow Democrat Colin Allred at Texas Southern University in Houston.
(Annie Mulligan/Associated Press)
The Senate race is largely a centrist battle, with each candidate portraying the other as extreme. (It’s not a stretch for Mr. Allred to take on one of the Senate’s most aggressive partisans, but he has begun touting efforts with Democrats on bridge construction, highway construction and other unusual projects.) It was only recently.)
Mr. Cruz’s campaign launched a “Crazy Colin” website, but alliteration aside, it wasn’t an easy sell. A University of Texas at Austin poll last month found that 45% of Republicans consider Ms. Allred extremely liberal, compared to 80% who think of Ms. Harris.
Mr. Allred has not fully accepted his party’s presidential nomination.
When Ms. Harris was in town recently for a celebrity-filled rally, Ms. Allred gave an impassioned speech about abortion rights and then left the stage before she appeared. A few days later, Allred hosted a roundtable on abortion rights, noting the “little event here in Houston,” the 30,000 attendees, and the presence of proud Houstonian Beyoncé.
The Vice President was not noticed.
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Democrats have an unfortunate and hype-filled history of suggesting this is the year they finally break and end the Texas drought.
In 2002, he formed a “Dream Team” consisting of the state’s first Latino gubernatorial candidate, the state’s leading white Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, and a black senator candidate.
It failed.
In 2013, state Sen. Wendy Davis electrified partisans across the country with an overnight filibuster in Austin aimed at blocking anti-abortion legislation. Although she lost the race, her political celebrity catapulted Davis to the gubernatorial candidacy in 2014, once again raising Democratic hopes high.
She lost to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by 20 percentage points.
This is a presidential election year, and Democrats are hoping higher turnout will help make up some of the ground O’Rourke lost in the 2018 campaign. It’s worth noting that after years of abolishing Texas, the National Party and its allies poured millions of dollars into Senate races.
Democrats have reason to be optimistic because the state is becoming more competitive.
In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney led Texas by 16 points. Trump won by 9 points in 2016, but won by just 5 points in 2020. This was the strongest performance by a Democratic presidential candidate in a quarter century.
But this is still Texas, where Republican and conservative voters typically outnumber Democrats and tend to be more partisan.
“One of the big questions about Ted Cruz is how deep his unpopularity is,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project and co-director of the University of Texas Poll. .
The answer could decide which party controls the Senate starting in January.
