Despite signs of enthusiasm since Vice President Kamala Harris joined the race for president, even the most optimistic Democrats likely don’t have Texas flipping blue on their bingo cards for November’s election. Texas hasn’t picked a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter, the last Democrat to serve as the state’s governor was Ann Richards, and it’s been more than 30 years since anyone other than a Texas Republican served as a U.S. senator.
Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker-turned-U.S. congressman, is hoping to change that — particularly in the wake of recent polling that has put him neck-and-neck with longtime U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
“This started off as a close race, it’s going to finish as a close race,” Allred said in an interview with Spectrum News on Wednesday. “And what it's going to come down to is making sure that who we are as Texans shows up on Nov. 5, and that we make sure that as many Texans as possible know what my plans are to lead us forward together.”
Allred, born and raised in Dallas, played football for Baylor University before signing with the Tennessee Titans. After four seasons in the NFL, he got his law degree and began working to protect voting rights with a Democratic-aligned nonprofit before joining the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Obama administration.
In 2018, the first and only midterm election of Republican Donald Trump’s administration, Allred defeated incumbent GOP lawmaker Pete Sessions, a 22-year lawmaker, to represent a suburban district north of Dallas. (Sessions would later move to Waco and win a new seat in Congress in 2020.)
Now he’s hoping that a wave of enthusiasm could help boost his chances to unseat Cruz, a one-time presidential candidate-turned-staunch Trump ally.
Allred, calling himself the “most bipartisan Texan in Congress,” called Cruz “the most extreme senator in the country,” accusing the two-term Republican of “only looking out for himself” and “abandoning” the state during a historic winter storm in 2021. (Cruz faced criticism for taking a family vacation to Cancún, Mexico, during a winter storm that left 200 people across the state dead; he later admitted the trip was a “mistake” and returned quickly, volunteering with recovery efforts in Houston.)
“We've had somebody who, I think, for 12 years has shown he's only about himself,” Allred said. “It doesn't have to be that way. We can go in a different direction, and I think we will.”
Democrats face a tall order to hold onto their U.S. Senate majority in November, with incumbents on the defensive in two states Trump won handily in 2020, Ohio and Montana. And with the retirement of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a former Democrat who became an independent, the seat is almost certain to flip to Republicans.
A report from Axios this week suggests that Democrats may be looking at races in Texas and Florida, where incumbent GOP Sen. Rick Scott is in a tight race with Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, as opportunities to bolster — or salvage — their narrow majority.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who chairs the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said those states “are real,” adding: “We hope to get resources into those states.”
One recent poll from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation found Cruz leading Allred by about 3 points, within the survey’s margin of error. Another, from Morning Consult, actually showed Allred narrowly leading by 1 point.
But narrow races are a familiar place for Cruz; in 2018, polls were tight between him and Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and the Republican ultimately prevailed in the closest Texas Senate race in 40 years.
That’s not daunting to Allred, either.
“I know how to win tough races, I beat a 22-year incumbent to get into the Congress,” Allred said, adding: “The goal here is to make sure the Texans know what my vision is for us going forward.”
That goal, he said, includes protecting Medicare and Social Security, working to bolster border security and restoring reproductive rights lost after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
“Ted Cruz is uniquely responsible for the abortion ban in place in Texas,” Allred charged, blaming his opponent for the state’s restrictions on the procedure. “We can restore the standard that we've had for the last 50 years under Roe v. Wade, which had restrictions in Texas, and we'll go back to those, but also left this decision fundamentally up to a woman and her doctor. That's what Texans, I think, want. That's what we can restore by beating Ted Cruz.”
The two candidates will meet for a debate in mid-October, something Allred says he’s looking forward to.
“I think that Texans will see … two very, very different people on that stage,” he said. “Somebody who has been focused and serious on how to serve us vs. somebody who I think will mostly spend his time doing outrageous things to try and do what he's always done, get attention and distract from his own record. And so that I think is something that will be helpful to Texans to see and I'm looking forward to it."