The January 6 rioters were closing in fast. Texas congressman Colin Allred could hear them coming, breaking glass and pounding on doors. He thought about his toddler son; Allred thought about the possibility he could be killed on the House floor and never meet his second son, due to be born in two months. He sent a text to his wife: Whatever happens, I love you. Then Allred took off his suit jacket and braced himself to use the skills he’d learned as an NFL linebacker, “putting people on the ground.”
Meanwhile, Texas senator Ted Cruz, who had helped stoke the insurrection, was hiding in a supply closet.
In the Hollywood version, the moment Allred learned about Cruz cowering is the moment the Democratic congressman decided to run against the Republican senator in 2024. The reality isn’t that melodramatic, but as Allred underscores the contrast between their responses during the insurrection, it’s clear that he is prepared to make a sharp and compelling case against Cruz. “There’s been no accountability for his actions,” Allred tells me. “For being on vacation in Cancun when Texas was freezing, for using the border as a political backdrop but not passing any legislation, for being one of the most divisive figures in the country, whipping up the mob in the weeks prior to January 6. But that accountability comes in this election.”
Allred still needs to win his party’s nomination next March, and he will face a spirited Democratic primary opponent in Roland Gutierrez, a state senator whose district includes San Antonio and Uvalde and who is making reducing gun violence a priority. But one reason Allred is considered the front-runner, and why he could be a serious general election threat to Cruz, is his campaign’s theory of the case. (Allred has been within single digits of Cruz in, admittedly, very early head-to-head polls; he’s also outraising the incumbent out of the gate.)
Associates of the congressman believe the biggest lesson from Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss to Cruz in 2018 isn’t simply that the Republican is vulnerable, but that the race was too much about O’Rourke and not enough about Cruz. The charismatic O’Rourke became a celebrity and a cause, which was enough to get him within 2.6% of his opponent; Allred believes that to defeat Cruz the focus needs to be squarely on the incumbent. “Oh, Ted Cruz is unlikable. But he’s also not doing the job. And that’s the biggest thing,” Allred says. “He has become mostly a media figure. He’s podcasting three times a week. He’s a constant presence on Fox News. He’s a content machine, but he’s not a legislative machine. He votes against our interests time and time again, because he’s an ideologue, pursuing an ideological viewpoint and a media viewpoint, not what’s best for Texas.”
There would be other significant differences between O’Rourke and Allred as Cruz challengers. O’Rourke was staunchly left of center; Allred, who currently represents a suburban Dallas district, is modestly moderate. Allred supports red flag laws and universal background checks, but he will not be declaring, as O’Rourke did during a brief presidential run, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” Allred believes climate change is a crisis, but he is pragmatic when it comes to one of Texas’s most powerful industries. “It isn’t realistic to think that we’re going to be able to immediately transition away from fossil fuels,” he says. “I’ve been supportive of an all-of-the-above energy approach.”
His personal story should have broad appeal. Allred, 40, says he has never met his father, who was Black; he was raised in Dallas by his mother, a white public school teacher, and went to Baylor on a football scholarship, then spent four seasons playing for the Tennessee Titans. Lying on the field, injured, Allred decided to go to law school; he later worked on housing issues in the Obama administration. In 2018 Allred, in his first run for office, knocked off 11-term Republican congressman Pete Sessions. “He is genuinely concerned with making a difference for other people,” says Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who, as HUD secretary, was Allred’s boss (and who is now an MSNBC contributor and emphasizes that he can’t endorse candidates). “Colin hasn’t forgotten where he came from.”
None of which will keep Cruz from hammering Allred, if he’s the nominee, on culture-war issues, by trying to portray his opponent as a drag queen-loving socialist Democrat, playing to partisan advantage: Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. “Even in the most liberal places in Texas, we’re pretty much a center-right kind of people. You know, even Democrats like their guns here,” says Vinny Minchillo, a Republican strategist in Dallas. “But the political map of Texas is always very tricky, because every two years there’s a whole new crop of people coming from out of state. So I would never say never about Cruz being vulnerable. I’m just surprised because Allred is leaving a really safe, nice seat, and this might be a suicide mission for him.” To pull off an upset, Allred will need the same perverse help with Democratic turnout motivation that President Joe Biden is looking for: “If Trump is at the top of the Republican ticket,” Texas political analyst Harvey Kronberg says, “then Ted Cruz is beatable.”
Allred shrugs at all the speculation and triangulation. He is wisely keeping things as simple, and as local, as possible. “This is not about the broader trends in the country. It’s not about the other races that we’ve had at the statewide level. This isn’t about whether Texas is going to turn blue,” he says. “It’s about a particular senator who has not been doing the job and who should not be reelected. This is about beating Ted Cruz and getting 30 million Texans the kind of leadership they deserve.”