Texas Democratic Congressman Colin Allred ultimately fell short Tuesday night in his bid to unseat Republican incumbent Ted Cruz in their U.S. Senate race as the vote count neared a close.
Cruz led by a sizeable 54% to 43.9% margin when 76% of the vote was counted late Tuesday night.
Allred, a first-term Congressman and former civil rights attorney in Dallas, entered the race for the U.S. Senate seat as an overwhelming underdog. However, his charisma and poise made the race competitive and perhaps gave hope that one day, the state that’s considered a Republican stronghold might turn Democrat blue. No Republican has lost a statewide race in Texans since 1994.
Allred didn’t come as close as former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke came to unseating Cruz (2.6 percentage points) in 2018, but the more than $80 million he raised broke records and raised hope for the future.
“Beto O’Rourke came very close and then Colin came in very competitive,” said former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who won the late Sheila Jackson Lee’s 18th Congressional seat Tuesday night. “More people looked at the state as a state that could certainly go blue and they invested in the state.
“The state hadn’t gone at that level before. I think we are a step closer. I don’t know what the final numbers will be but we are certainly a step closer and eventually, this state is going to turn blue.”
Allred dominated in the urban and suburban areas, including Harris County. Cruz, who is from Houston, again had his greatest success in rural Texas to win a third term.
“He was very, very competitive, and from what I heard, he raised more money than Ted Cruz, which is exceptional in and of itself,” Turner said. “He blew up the airwaves and support was widespread. He had Republicans supporting him. Liz Cheney came in and endorsed him along with some of the others.
“And then for the first time that I can recall, he had many top-notch leaders that came in from outside out of the state …Senator (Raphael) Warnock (Ga.-Democrate) for example and other Congressional leaders came in, so he ran an exceptional campaign in a state that hadn’t gone blue in the last 30 years.”
The race between Allred and Cruz heated up in the days leading up to the election with it being too close call.
This race had taken on a particularly chippy tone with Cruz and his camp accusing Allred of supporting boys participating in girls’ sports and being soft on immigration. Allred and his supporters then pointed to Cruz’s anti-abortion stance and taking away a woman’s right to choose. He also didn’t let the state forget how he escaped to Cancun while the people and his constituents in Houston suffered through a devastating winter storm in 2021.
Cruz had the support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Allred made his concession speech at his watch party in Dallas. He said he called to congratulate Cruz.
“It shouldn’t be remarkable to have to admit defeat,” Allred said in an Associated Press report. “You can’t just be a patriot when your side wins. Tonight we didn’t win, but we will continue to be patriots.”
A poll leading up to election day showed the race tightening with the incumbent leading Allred by just over a percentage point. In 2018, Cruz defeated O’Rourke by only 219,000 votes.
The final Senate poll of the 2024 campaign from Morning Consult, released Sunday, had Cruz with a 3-point lead over Allred. The survey among 2,120 likely voters was conducted between Oct. 22 and 31, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Allred a former Baylor and NFL player, came in as a relative unknown as a first-term Democratic Representative in the 32nd District in Dallas. Cruz, of course, has held his Senate seat since 2013.
Democrats saw this race as one of the best chances to flip a seat in the U.S. Senate. Flipping Cruz’s seat could have significantly helped the Democrats maintain control in the Senate, where they went into election night holding a 51-49 seat majority.
But the Democratic Party hasn’t won a statewide race in Texas since 1994. Allred was seeking to become the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race since 1988.
“If they’re able to win this, this might give them a 50/50 tie in the Senate and then, if the Democrats get elected, Tim Walz is our tie-breaking vote,” St. Edwards University Political Science Professor Brian Smith said to Fox7 in Austin before election night. “But if the Democrats are unable to pick up Texas, there’s really no pathway for them to get to the Senate majority unless we see a real groundswell in a lot of other states.”
