• The landmark Senate race between Colin Allred and Ted Cruz could reveal a lot about Texas’ identity.
• The Lone Star State has been a GOP stronghold for decades, but vote swings are changing that dynamic.
• BI spoke with Colin Allred in Houston about the race and how he sees Cruz’s tenure in office.

For decades, Democrats have sought to regain their former glory in Texas, but have repeatedly come up short.

The party has not won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994, largely depriving it of the kind of bank that Republicans have cultivated for years through their dominance of state government.

So when Rep. Colin Allred — a three-term lawmaker who represents the 32nd Congressional District in the Dallas area — entered this year’s Senate race against two-term Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, many Democrats felt that bipartisan credentials he would strengthen his run.

Allred, 41, believes he can be a change agent for Texas. And with less than a week before the election, he remains locked in a competitive contest with Cruz, 53.

A late October New York Times/Siena College Poll showed Cruz with a four-point lead 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 surveys of the race, including those from Marist College, Morning Consult and the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs, all showed Cruz with single-digit leads.

The race’s competitiveness prompted Senate Majority PAC — the Democratic political action committee linked 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 seen as the party’s best opportunity to flip a red seat this year. In all, 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 tilt to unseat Cruz.

Reproductive rights and the economy

I sat down with Allred before a recent launch event in Houston, where the former NFL player and civil rights attorney laid out his case against Cruz’s candidacy.

But something significant stood out during our conversation.

In the past, red-state Democrats have often shied away from speaking out too strongly on reproductive rights. However, after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court, along with the adoption of Texas’ strict abortion banAllred criticized “extremism” that he argued would severely damage the economy.

In the Times/Siena poll, likely Texas voters ranked the economy as their top issue, with 27 percent of respondents expressing that opinion. (The second and third issues were immigration and abortion, with 15% support for each issue.)

“The individual stories of people who were denied care in the event of a miscarriage or who were denied care when the pregnancies were not viable and had to leave the state are horrific,” Allred told me after speaking at a rally focused on reproductive rights, led by Harris, who also presented an appearance by Beyoncé. “I know many of these women who have come forward. It’s personal. It also affects every other aspect of life in Texas, from our medical schools to our universities to our business climate.”

The electoral map

In 2018, then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke criss-crossed Texas during his campaign for the Senate and, in the process, visited all 254 counties in the state.

While Cruz ultimately won, he only narrowly beat O’Rourke 2.6 percentage pointsor by approximately 215,000 votes out of more than 8.3 million votes cast.

O’Rourke’s campaign that year worked to galvanize Democratic voters—with an emphasis on young and progressive voters—and his town hall events became a signature part of his campaign.

Allred’s campaign approach is little different from that of O’Rourke, who represented the El Paso area in Congress from 2013 to 2019. He is also trying to maximize Democratic turnout, but has done serious outreach to independents and Republicans to be a part of his moderate campaign.

“I have a track record of being the most bipartisan Texan in Congress,” he told me during our conversation.

It’s the kind of ethos Allred is taking with him on the campaign trail across Texas, a behemoth of a state that contains huge cities and dozens of medium and smaller cities and towns in between. It can take about thirteen hours to cross Texas from east to 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 meet any Texans looking for a handout, but I run into Texans looking for someone to be on their side.”

Texas Democrats already have strong showings in cities like Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. But in the Trump era, the Democrats did too increasingly won over suburban votersa phenomenon that helped the party tremendously in other Sun Belt states like Arizona and Georgia. And if Allred wants to beat Cruz, he’ll need to put up extremely strong numbers with suburban voters in general.

Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, told me in an interview that Cruz is in a tough 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 party faithful and conservative-leaning independents.

But Cruz, a one-time candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Moldova, has cut a polarizing profile both in Texas and on the national stage.

“He doesn’t have much appeal to the kind of moderate 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 huge amount, but he starts at a disadvantage in that he has to win almost all of the Republican votes and make sure that the Republicans show up.”

Cruz ‘too small’ for Texas

Throughout the campaign, Allred targeted Cruz’s infamous 2021 trip to Cancún, Mexico, which took place while many Texans were without power due to a severe winter storm.

During our conversation, Allred described Cruz as someone who lacks a larger vision for one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, which now boasts more than 30 million residents.

Business Insider has reached out to the Cruz campaign for comment.

“Texas is incredibly diverse and dynamic, but we’ve been governed by extremists who I believe have jeopardized all the positive aspects of our state,” Allred told me. “Ted Cruz, in particular, is someone who I think is too small for Texas. His vision is too small for us. And to me, he’s kind of the opposite of the Texas that I know.”

Allred, who would be Texas’ first black senator if he defeats Cruz, also spoke about the difficulties of change in a state where Republicans have long held power.

“When you’ve had a one-party state for so long, you can feel like it can’t change,” Allred told me. “There is always a feeling that we should have a change. But can we break in?”