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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
In Colin Allred, Ted Cruz once again facing a well-funded Democratic
challenger in reelection fight
By Ashley Killough and Ed Lavandera, CNN
Updated:
8:17 AM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
Source: CNN
On a sunny October afternoon, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz posed for photos
with supporters next to his campaign bus in downtown Waxahachie – a
historic square complete with quaint shops and a storied, almost
mythical-looking courthouse.
The city is the seat of conservative Ellis County, directly south of
Dallas and named after one of the leaders who helped Texas declare its
independence from Mexico in 1836. Cruz had just delivered a fiery
speech in an old playhouse across the street called the Texas Theater,
where he rallied the crowd with red-meat rhetoric and jokes appealing
to the state’s unique sense of pride.
“We were founded by a bunch of wildcatters,” he said onstage in
jeans and boots. “A bunch of guys with fourth-grade educations who
began drilling holes in the ground and one after the other became the
richest men on Earth. That’s Texas! Texas is: Give me an open field
and a horse and a gun, and I can conquer the world.”
Ranked one of the most conservative senators, Cruz’s bid for a third
term should be a smooth ride in a place that has consistently elected
Republicans in statewide contests for the past 30 years. But for the
second election in a row, Cruz finds himself fighting to keep his seat
against a well-funded Democrat.
Rep. Colin Allred is a former NFL linebacker and civil rights lawyer
who ousted a Republican for a US House seat six years ago. He’s now
challenging Cruz and painting the incumbent senator as an unlikeable
politician who cares more about podcasting than about legislating.
Recent polls suggest a tightening race, one reminiscent of when
Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to Cruz in 2018 by less than 3 percentage
points in a campaign that caught the country’s attention. National
Democratic groups are again investing heavily in TV ads, stirring up an
all-too-familiar hope they can pull off a massive upset, though many
remain skeptical.
Both men describe themselves as serious legislators who can work across
the aisle, while at the same time, blast each other as radical
candidates out of touch with Texas voters. The ad wars on TV further
highlight a stark contrast between two emerging yet competing ideas of
the Texas electorate – a longtime conservative force or an evolving
landscape with increasingly Democratic strongholds.
The latter of which is a reality casting a shadow on Cruz’s campaign
– most notably when he urges voters on his 53-city tour to vote for
Republicans up and down the ticket.
“This race comes down to one very simple thing,” he says in his
stump speech, “keeping Texas Texas.”
The issues: Economy, the border and transgender policies
In the final weeks before the election, both candidates are blitzing
across the state to drill home their closing message. They’re also
set to duel in a televised debate Tuesday,
That’s on top of the massive amount of money spent on ads in the
state’s abundant and expensive media markets. The two campaigns and
their allied groups have spent nearly $129 million, including future
ad buys through Election Day, according to data from AdImpact, making
it one of the eight most expensive Senate races this cycle. Allred and
groups supporting him have spent nearly two-thirds of that total, while
Cruz and his supporters have spent the other third.
Cruz has largely aimed his attacks on Allred regarding three issues:
the economy, the US southern border and transgender policies. He’s
released multiple TV ads pointing to Allred’s vote against a GOP-led
House bill last year that would have banned transgender athletes from
women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools. The bill, ,
was not taken up by the Senate.
On the campaign trail, Cruz makes the topic a prominent part of his
stump speech. “We are living in a world where one of the two major
parties right now cannot figure out what is a woman,” he said.
“That didn’t use to be a trick question.”
Allred became the first Democrat this election cycle to release an ad
responding to the barbs over transgender issues – a key line of
attack by Republicans in the presidential race and other congressional
races.
“Ted Cruz is lying again, but now he’s lying about our children.
I’m a dad. I’m also a Christian,” Allred says in a new ad. “And
my faith has taught me that all kids are God’s kids. So let me be
clear: I don’t want boys playing girls sports or any of this
ridiculous stuff that Ted Cruz is saying.”
CNN has asked Allred’s campaign to clarify his stance more precisely
but has not received a response.
Cruz also criticizes Allred for changing his tune on the southern
border. While running for Congress in 2018, Allred and as recently as
two years ago said he didn’t see the border as a “top-of-mind”
issue for a lot of voters in Texas, though he said he wanted to see
comprehensive immigration reform.
He’s now making the border a focal point in his ads, vowing to fix
the issue and attacking Cruz for opposing the bipartisan immigration
bill earlier this year. Allred also joined with Republicans this year
to condemn the “Biden administration’s open-borders policies” in
a GOP-led resolution.
On the campaign trail, where the border is a winning issue for
Republicans, Cruz has repeatedly called out Allred for standing in
front of the same border wall that the representative criticized years
ago in one of his TV ads and has questioned Allred’s seriousness
about the border.
In an interview with CNN, Allred defended his position, acknowledging
that he and his party took “too long to be responsive to what was a
rising tide of migration.”
“But we can also say the response can’t be ‘Let’s be cruel to
people and think that’s gonna help.’ That’s not actual border
security,” he said.
Meanwhile, Allred is hitting Cruz hard over abortion, arguing the
senator is “responsible” for the overturning of Roe v. Wade by
helping put judges and justices in federal courts, leading to the
landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2022.
“With Ted Cruz, we get more government and less freedom, and Texas
women pay the price,” the narrator says in one of Allred’s ads.
While Cruz has celebrated the Supreme Court ruling as a major victory,
he’s remained quiet recently about his stance on Texas’ , which
don’t include exceptions for rape or incest. Asked by CNN why he
didn’t mention abortion in his stump speech after a rally in Allen,
Cruz argued it’s not a top concern for Texas voters and changed the
subject to jobs and the border. In another gaggle with reporters the
following day, he said it was an issue for state leaders to decide.
‘Republicans for Allred’
Both candidates tout their bipartisanship, but Allred is leaning
heavily into his support from high-profile Republicans such as former
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois,
who leads a group called “Republicans for Allred.”
Allred brings up their endorsements often, mentioning their names more
frequently than Vice President Kamala Harris’. Asked by CNN about
that strategy, Allred said he doesn’t think Texas voters view his
race and the presidential race in the same light.
“I do think that there are Texans out there who are actual
conservatives and who believe in the rule of law, who believe in the
Constitution, who believe we shouldn’t try and overturn elections,
who think that, you know, they don’t want to be embarrassed anymore
by their senator,” he said.
Cruz finds Cheney’s support laughable. “I’ve known Liz Cheney a
long time, and she’s completely lost her mind,” he told CNN when
asked about her endorsement.
Allred’s effort to cement his brand as a moderate is one key
difference from O’Rourke’s campaign in 2018. And while O’Rourke
crisscrossed the state with large, energetic rallies, Allred has spent
much of the race holding smaller, more intimate events, while spending
big – and early – on TV ads to boost his name recognition. In these
final weeks, Allred is starting to do bigger events, urging people to
get out the vote.
O’Rourke also refrained from going negative against Cruz, but Allred
isn’t holding back punches. Several of his ads show video of Cruz at
the airport on his infamous trip to Cancun during the deadly 2021 Texas
freeze that left the state in a standstill for days. Cruz called the
trip a , but he has since joked about it.
At a campaign event last week with the “Funky East Dallas
Democrats,” Allred railed against Cruz’s intentions as a serious
legislator, poking fun at his thrice-weekly podcast, blaming him in
part for the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and knocking him on
abortion.
But in his closing line, Allred asked the crowd to remember Cruz’s
Cancun suitcase as they watch the results come in on Election Day.
“Imagine Cruz taking that same little roller bag and walking right
out of the Capitol,” he said.
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