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Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who won a Congressional seat by defeating an incumbent Republican in 2018, won Tuesday’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, leading a crowded race for challengers, according to the Associated Press. It is said that he jumped into action. Senator Ted Cruz.
“Words cannot express how much it means to me to be nominated to be the next senator from the great state of Texas,” Allred, a civil rights attorney and former NFL linebacker, told supporters Tuesday night. told.
State Sen. Rolando Gutierrez, who was trailing in the early comeback race, conceded the race midway through Tuesday evening and thanked his supporters. Many of the supporters were family members of those killed in school shootings in small cities across the state. Uvalde in 2022.
Mr. Allred, 40, pitched himself during the campaign as a versatile politician with a working-class upbringing who could appeal to a wide range of voters. But he faces very high odds in the general election. No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since the 1990s.
Democrats have long believed that Mr. Cruz is one of the best targets to finally break this record. In 2018, when Cruz first ran for re-election, then-little-known El Paso state Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within about 2.5 percentage points of unseating him, but this was the first statewide election. was an unusually close margin. Race.
Mr. Allred won a House seat that year on the same wave of Democratic enthusiasm that nearly ousted Mr. Cruz. Allred’s district has since been redrawn to favor Democrats.
Mr. Allred largely ignored his Democratic opponent in this year’s Senate primary, instead focusing his campaign on Mr. Cruz. In a video introducing his campaign, he said the senator “embarrassed” Texans and “cheered on the mob” at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. .
Mr. Allred has been successful in attracting interest from donors in Texas and across the country, and is far ahead of his closest rival in the race, Mr. Gutierrez. Through mid-February, Mr. Allred had raised more than $18.4 million, compared to about $1.3 million for Mr. Gutierrez.
Mr. Gutierrez gained national attention for his active advocacy on behalf of the adults and children killed in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, and their families. He has taken strong stances in support of gun control and has advocated positions to the left of Mr. Allred on other issues such as health care, and a combative, partisan approach may be a better path to defeating Mr. Cruz. I am calculating that. Mr. Allred’s cross-the-aisle approach.
Gutierrez criticized Allred in a televised debate, particularly for trying to appeal to all sides, especially on business, and for signing a Congressional resolution with Republicans criticizing President Biden’s handling of immigration and the border. did.
Allred defended his position, saying the key to winning a tough race is building coalitions and that voting for the resolution was a question of “supporting the status quo or not.”
“We have to be bipartisan on immigration reform,” Allred said.
In the end, Democrats supported Mr. Allred, believing him to be the better choice in a hard-fought and expensive general election.
Mr. Cruz is deeply unpopular among Texas Democrats, but remains popular among Republicans, who are more likely to vote in a presidential election year, especially if Donald J. It is expected that Mr. Trump is considered the favorite.
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