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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz declared victory over U.S. Rep. Colin Allred on Tuesday, defying one other spirited and well-funded effort to show Texas blue and preserving his standing as a number one conservative voice in American politics.
“This decisive victory should shake the Democrat establishment to its core,” he stated in a speech to his supporter in Houston.
After his shut scare in opposition to then-U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke in 2018, Cruz vowed to enter this election cycle higher ready and extra aggressive, decided to keep away from the ignominious destiny of turning into the primary Texas Republican to lose statewide since 1994.
Cruz’s victory as soon as once more dashes Democrats’ dream of breaking their decades-long drought in Texas statewide elections. Nevertheless it was not with no critical problem: Each candidates raised north of $80 million and attracted hundreds of thousands extra from exterior teams desperate to sway a contest that carried potential to resolve management of the U.S. Senate.
Allred, a former NFL linebacker and civil rights lawyer from Dallas, repeatedly broke fundraising data in his marketing campaign, elevating greater than $80 million by mid-October. He blanketed the state with advertisements introducing himself as a extra bipartisan different to Cruz. In the meantime, it was Cruz’s first election because the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and Cruz’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcomes, giving Democrats hope that he can be weak this yr.
Like in 2018, polls within the lead as much as Election Day remained shut. Allred was repeatedly polling inside single digits behind Cruz, with one September ballot displaying him one level forward. The Allred marketing campaign revealed inside polling simply days earlier than Election Day displaying the 2 tied.
Ultimately, Allred couldn’t overcome Vice President Kamala Harris’ deficit to Republican nominee Donald Trump atop the poll in Texas. Although Allred saved his distance from his celebration’s presidential nominee, Cruz tied the 2 collectively at seemingly each flip, telling audiences that “Colin Allred is Kamala Harris.”
Late within the marketing campaign, Cruz and his allied PACs launched a barrage of advertisements accusing Allred of supporting laws that will enable males to make use of ladies’s restrooms and boys to play in ladies’ sports activities — together with a spot that confirmed an grownup male soccer participant carrying an Allred jersey tackling a younger lady, which Cruz highlighted as his “favorite ad of the cycle.”
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Democrats and LGBTQ+ advocacy teams criticized the assaults as peddling harmful and false narratives about transgender youth, and Allred rebutted together with his personal advert accusing Cruz of mischaracterizing his stance. However Cruz — and Republicans who ran related advertisements across the nation — noticed the anti-transgender advertisements as efficient, significantly among the many average voters Allred was courting.
Additionally fueling Cruz’s win was his standing as one of the vital widespread Republicans amongst conservative voters in a state the place GOP voters nonetheless outnumber Democrats. He ran on a message of expertise, having racked up a legislative report after 12 years within the Senate and because the high Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee.
In the meantime, Allred gave up a promising profession within the U.S. Home to run for Senate. His political future, as soon as shiny, is now unclear.
Cruz was prepared
The 2018 Senate race was a warning shot for Cruz. O’Rourke got here inside putting distance of flipping the seat, turning into a cultural phenomenon that attracted consideration — and donors — from across the nation. Republicans had been caught off guard by the problem, and Cruz’s historical past as much as the purpose as being one of many largest disruptors within the Senate made him weak. O’Rourke introduced in over $80 million to his marketing campaign effort, making the race the costliest within the historical past of the Senate.
This cycle, Cruz rallied donors early with warnings that they need to take nothing without any consideration. Cruz warned the state’s suburban growth may result in extra Democratic voters.
“Texas is a battlefield,” Cruz instructed Texas delegates on the Republican Nationwide Conference this yr. “It’s easy to be complacent. One of the real mistakes people make in politics is they have a recency bias. They say well, whatever things have been recently, that’s what it’s going to be forever.”
In response to O’Rourke’s record-breaking haul, Cruz doubled his fundraising from the 2018 cycle. He acquired an early begin, elevating over $30 million by the point Allred launched his Senate bid in Might 2023.
He additionally launched a reputational rebrand, attempting to melt his incendiary picture with an early media blitz highlighting his work with Democrats.
Because the race took form, Cruz hit the marketing campaign path with a message targeted on preserving Texas’ conservative values — he known as his marketing campaign bus tour “Keep Texas, Texas” — and framing the race as “a battle between sane and crazy.” In his stump speech, delivered at breweries, barbecue eating places and music halls across the state, Cruz forged Allred and the broader Democratic Occasion as having gone too far left on transgender rights, vital race idea and different points on the coronary heart of the nation’s tradition wars.
Within the closing weeks he deployed a lineup of high-powered surrogates, rallying with former President Donald Trump in Austin and bringing a few of his GOP Senate colleagues onto the marketing campaign path forward of Election Day.
Cruz additionally benefited from his nearly common title recognition amongst Republicans in Texas and across the nation — a bonus the little-known Allred has needed to battle all through the cycle.
Cruz first made a reputation for himself as a rabble-rouser within the Senate and cultivated the picture all through his time in workplace, typically clashing with the leaders of his personal celebration. He grew to become identified for his spirited speeches each in entrance of the cameras and behind closed doorways within the Capitol, the place he may at instances be heard screaming from the halls.
He expanded his attain with the assistance of his thrice-weekly podcast syndicated via iHeartMedia to hundreds of thousands of listeners, and his 4 books on matters starting from his life story to his furor with the federal judiciary.
However Cruz’s fame additionally supplied Democrats a simple caricature to focus on. The Allred marketing campaign repeatedly attacked Cruz as a conservative celeb extra curious about cultivating his model than serving Texans. Allred alluded to Cruz’s transient journey to Cancún in the course of the 2021 winter storm Uri, labeling him as “the ultimate Me Guy” who would depart the state throughout a pure catastrophe.
“No one is more self-serving, more disconnected from Texans’ needs,” Allred stated in a speech on the Texas Democratic Conference in June.
Allred additionally tied Cruz to Texas’ abortion restrictions, noting the senator’s previous statements opposing abortion. Amanda Zurawski and Kate Cox, two Texas ladies who had care for his or her nonviable pregnancies delayed due to the state’s abortion legal guidelines, campaigned for Allred. After largely conserving Harris’ marketing campaign out of his calculus, Allred joined the vice chairman at a Houston rally on reproductive rights.
Cruz deferred opining on the state’s abortion legal guidelines, saying it was as much as the state authorities to resolve whereas pointedly refusing to make clear whether or not he agrees with Texas’ lack of exceptions for pregnancies ensuing from rape or incest.
Cruz pushed again on the partisan accusations all through the marketing campaign, asserting he was able to concurrently being a right-wing fighter whereas additionally working throughout the aisle to get issues carried out. He touted over 100 legislative accomplishments as a senator, making efficacy a key side of his marketing campaign. He rebranded himself as a bipartisan dealmaker early within the cycle, saying it may exist in tandem together with his position as a conservative firebrand.
“It is easy and probably more fun to cover the battles that I have waged against the Obama administration or the Biden administration, or [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer,” Cruz stated in April. “Those may make for easy headlines, but often overlooked are now [100] different pieces of legislation that I’ve authored and passed into law in my time in the Senate.”
Allred dismissed the claims, stating that Cruz opposed lots of the largest bipartisan payments of President Joe Biden’s time in workplace, together with the CHIPS and Science Act and the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Acts, each of which introduced billions of {dollars} to Texas. Cruz additionally opposed an finally unsuccessful bipartisan Senate border deal negotiated by the White Home and Republican Sen. James Lankford, impartial Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy. Allred supported all three payments.
Allred’s playbook
Allred’s largest weak point for months was that nobody knew who he was. Regardless of three phrases within the U.S. Home, he had low title recognition exterior of his Dallas district or the halls of Congress. He was not one to pine for viral moments or change into a political model as was Cruz’s wont.
He spent closely to introduce himself to the state, investing over $31 million in tv advertisements, in keeping with monitoring agency AdImpact. Nationwide Senate Democrat teams spent one other $15 million.
Allred proved to be one of many state’s most prolific fundraisers. He outraised Cruz each quarter of the yr and repeatedly broke O’Rourke’s fundraising data. Allred additionally led the state’s first coordinated marketing campaign for a Democratic Senate candidate in many years, consolidating assets up and down the ticket.
There have been different forces at play working in Allred’s favor. Till Biden dropped out of the race, few Democrats thought Allred had a sensible shot of overcoming the president’s dismal approval rankings in Texas. Polls confirmed Biden trailing Trump by a mean of virtually 10 share factors by the point he nixed his reelection bid, reinforcing Democratic pessimism after a midterm cycle by which Gov. Greg Abbott had defeated O’Rourke by 11 factors. And whereas Allred supplied solely a tepid embrace of Harris because the nominee, the momentum started to shift in his favor as Harris narrowed Trump’s benefit within the state.
Allred additionally caught a break with Democrats’ robust Senate map this yr. Senate Democrats recognized Texas as a high flip alternative largely as a result of they didn’t have any others and had been on the lookout for methods to guard their 51-seat majority.
He touted work he had carried out with Republicans, incomes him the rating of twenty seventh most bipartisan member of Congress in 2023 by the Lugar Heart and Georgetown College. He was endorsed by each the pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO labor group in 2020 and 2022, although the chamber endorsed Cruz this yr.
Allred additionally capitalized on Cruz’s position in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, hoping to enchantment to conservative voters turned off by the episode. Former U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Republicans who served on the Home committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, endorsed and campaigned for Allred.
Allred by no means absolutely escaped the shadow of O’Rourke, who famously barnstormed via all 254 counties in Texas and have become an web sensation together with his freewheeling, profanity-laden stump speeches.
He took a way more typical marketing campaign technique, prioritizing curated advertisements and punctiliously choreographed appearances that didn’t lend themselves to the sorts of spontaneous moments that catapulted O’Rourke into political stardom.
Allred stated his technique was obligatory to maximise his message all through such a big state.
“We’ve got a great state and a massive state, and last month, we’ve done 50 stops in 22 cities,” Allred stated in September. “We also have to have resources to make sure we communicate in the biggest media markets in the country, and also in markets in places that are completely siloed from each other.”
Cruz laced into Allred for his understated marketing campaign technique, blasting him for “hiding in his basement” and sometimes taunting him for posting pictures that confirmed modestly attended marketing campaign occasions. However he additionally warned that the race was nonetheless “very, very dangerous” for him, partly as a result of coastal Democratic donors have made “money rain in from the sky.”
“Look, it’s not complicated,” Cruz stated after a marketing campaign rally in August. “If you’re a really partisan left-wing Democrat, after Donald Trump, there is nobody in the country you want to beat more than me.”
