Ted Cruz is in a close race to keep his seat in government. After just barely defeating former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke to retain his Senate seat in 2018, Cruz is now locked in a dead-heat contest against Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker turned Texas representative.
Cruz has been vocalizing his fear everywhere he can that Allred may knock him from his seat, while accusing nefarious Democratic operatives of conspiring to oust him from government. On Wednesday, Cruz begged for donations on Fox News and complained that Allred is out fundraising O’Rourke in his 2018 run by a margin of 3 to 1.
“The Democrats are coming after me, they are gonna spend more than $100 million this year, George Soros is already spending millions of dollars in the state of Texas,” Cruz told Sean Hannity, invoking the specter of Hungarian billionaire Gorge Soros, who is often the target of antiemetic conspiracy theories over his role influencing politics.
So who is Colin Allred, and why is Cruz so worried about his candidacy? Here’s everything you need to know about the Texas candidate who might flip one of the Lone Star State’s Senate seats blue.
How did Colin Allred make his way to the U.S. House of Representatives?
Allred, a college football star who played four seasons with the Tennessee Titans, left the NFL in 2011 to pursue a law career. After earning his J.D. at the University of California, Berkeley Law School, he worked as an attorney at Perkins Coie law firm, and held positions in the White House Counsel’s office under the Obama,and the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In 2017, Allred announced his run to represent Texas’ 32nd District, which represents parts of Dallas and it’s neighboring suburbs, challenging Republican incumbent Pete Sessions, who had held a seat in the House since 1997. Allred won the district’s hotly contested Democratic primary in a runoff election. He went on to defeat Sessions by a margin of 7 points.
Allred was reelected in both 2020 and 2022. As a member of Congress he has served on the House Foreign Affairs, Transportation Affairs, and Veterans Affairs committees. In May of last year, Allred announced he would be challenging Cruz for his Senate seat.
In his video announcement, Allred mocked Cruz for hiding in a supply closet during the Jan. 6 riot after egging on conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and for getting caught fleeing to Cancun during Texas’ statewide power outages in 2021. “We deserve a senator whose team is Texas, and Ted Cruz only cares about himself,” Allred said. “We don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator, we can get a new one.”
What is Colin Allred’s voting record?
Allred hasn’t seemed too concerned with making a national name for himself since joining Congress. He’s generally abstained from taking part in the inter-party drama driving coverage of the House of Representatives, while toeing the Democratic Party line with his votes … for the most part.
The Texas Tribune points out that he did, however, acknowledge the perspective of the oil and gas industry while debating clean energy initiatives in the Inflation Reduction Act (which Allred did support). In March, he was one of 10 Democrats to vote with Republicans on a resolution holding that a carbon tax would be detrimental to the economy.
He was also one of 109 Democrats to vote with Republicans last year on a resolution “denouncing the horrors of socialism. This January, he was one of 14 Democrats who voted with Republicans in favor of a January resolution condemning President Joe Biden’s handling of the border. He has simultaneously admonished Republicans, particularly Cruz, for opposing the bipartisan legislation Biden endorsed that would have increased border security.
Cruz may be trying to cast Allred as a radical Democrat, but Allred isn’t among his party’s more progressive members.
Does Colin Allred have a chance to beat Ted Cruz?
Yup. Polling indicates that Cruz is barely edging out Allred, with some surveys showing them neck and neck among Texas voters.
Allred is also pulling in massive amounts of fundraising, with more than $10 million cash on hand at the end of 2023. In the fourth quarter of last year, Allred raised $4.8 million, almost matching the $5.5 million brought in by Cruz’s sprawling fundraising apparatus in the same time period.
Cruz himself has been touting Allred’s fundraising numbers as a threat to his reelection, warning that he barely managed to beat O’Rourke in 2018, and that the expanded coffers of his latest challenger could make the difference between a third term, and a major Senate seat flip for Democrats.
