Ted Cruz gets his first Democratic rival: ex-NFL player Colin Allred
Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Wednesday got his first Democratic rival of the 2024 election — a former NFL linebacker and civil rights attorney who launched his campaign with an attack on the senator.
Texas Democratic Representative Colin Allred entered the race with a video focused on the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol and filled with lines slamming Cruz.
Allred said the day MAGA supporters flooded the Capitol that he was “ready to take on anyone who came in through that door,” while Cruz “cheered on the crowd” and “hid in a pantry.”
“We don’t have to be ashamed of our senator,” Allred said. “We can get a new one.”
Democratic Representative Colin Allred came out against Republican Senator Ted Cruz when he launched a campaign against him
Allred, 40, also criticized Cruz for taking his family to Cancun while millions of Texans suffered a power outage from a winter storm, claiming the senator would “do anything to get on Fox News.”
Cruz didn’t take Allred’s submission lying down.
“We cannot allow a radical leftist like Colin Allred to turn our state blue in 2024,” he tweeted.
And Cruz campaign spokesman Nick Maddux called Allred “too extreme for Texas” and attacked him for so-called “woke” positions — a line Republicans are using against Democrats this election cycle.
Democrats have once again turned to a far-left radical to run for Senate. Not only does Colin Allred vote with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time, but his voting record is completely out of Texas. Allred wants men to play women’s sports, doesn’t take the crisis at the border seriously, wants to take guns away from law-abiding Texans and is lenient about punishing murderers,” Maddux said in a statement.
Though Senator Ted Cruz was nearly picked up by Democrat Beto O’Rourke in 2018, no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas in nearly 30 years
Allred has a tough battle ahead of him.
Although Cruz was nearly picked up by Democrat Beto O’Rourke in 2018, no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas in nearly 30 years.
Allred switched a congressional seat from Republican to Democratic to win his first election to the House in 2018, prevailing in the traditionally Republican suburbs of Dallas.
But Texas still remains mostly red. In 2020, Trump defeated President Joe Biden in the Lone Star State by nearly 6 points.
Allred shrugged.
“Some people say a Democrat can’t win in Texas,” he said in a campaign launch video. “Well, someone like me should never have come this far.”
Allred was a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans after playing college football at Baylor. When his playing career was over, he went to law school.
He was born in Dallas. His father is black and his mother is white. He never knew his father and has talked about how his mother raised him as a single mother.
Allred and his wife Aly have two sons, Jordan and Cameron. In 2019, Allred became the first congressman in history to take paternity leave. He took two weeks off. In March 2021 he took another leave of absence, this time for a month after the birth of his second son.
He comes into the race with good chops.
Popular in the party, he worked his way up to leader in just four years, to a position on House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s team.
Post-2020 redistricting put Allred in a safe Democratic seat — so his vacancy should not affect the number of Democrats in the House.
Colin and his wife Aly have two sons, Jordan and Cameron. In 2019, Allred became the first congressman in history to take paternity leave
Cruz’s latest approval ratings, coming from Februaryshow that 40 percent of Texans approve of the work he does and another 46 percent do not.
Party affiliation plays a big part in Texans’ views of the senator — 78 percent of Republicans say they approve of him and only 10 percent of Democrats share the same view.
A month before narrowly reelected in 2018, Cruz had a 47 percent approval rating and a 42 percent disapproval rating, according to polls conducted by the University of Texas.
At the time, 87 percent of Republicans approved of him, as did 6 percent of Democrats.
The Democrats currently hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate and face a tough electoral map in 2024, when their party will defend 23 seats compared to the Republicans’ 10. Three of those Democratic seats are in states that then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, won in the 2020 election.