Ted Cruz, Colin Allred The U.S. Senate race is gaining national attention
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Ted Cruz, Colin Allred The U.S. Senate race is gaining national attention

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Both candidates to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate have a lot at stake when the race begins in the fall.

Ted Cruz, Colin Allred The U.S. Senate race is gaining national attention

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The U.S. Senate Democratic campaign said Thursday it plans to make a “new multimillion-dollar television advertising investment” in connection with Democratic Rep. Colin Allred’s race against Texas Republican Sen. Cruz and on behalf of the Democrat challenging a Republican incumbent in Florida.

The release shows that national Democrats see a late-campaign opportunity to flip seats in the nation’s two largest, reliably Republican states that were previously considered out of reach or at best a distant possibility in the 2024 election cycles. Cruz will seek a third term in the Nov. 5 election, and Florida Republican Rick Scott will seek a second term against Democratic rival Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

“Throughout the cycle, DSCC has been preparing to take advantage of the Sens’ weak position. Cruz and Scott in their home states – and now our efforts in Texas and Florida are gaining momentum,” said Senator Gary Peters, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Texas Democrats have been banned from all statewide races since 1998, but Cruz survived a tough fight in his first re-election attempt six years ago, when he edged Democrat Beto O’Rourke by just 2.6 percentage points. Recent polls point to another close race between the incumbent president and Allred, who has represented the Dallas-based U.S. House district since winning the primary race in 2018.

Strict interrogation, dueling

In a statement coinciding with the Democratic committee’s announcement, Allred campaign manager Paige Hutchinson said Cruz “is weaker and more vulnerable than ever” on many fronts, including his support for the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. , which abolished the constitutional right to abortion.

In recent weeks, amid a flurry of fundraising appeals, Cruz has used a tight poll to reinforce the idea that he needs modest resources to spread his message.

“Let me get straight to the point: this is my race EXTREMELY CLOSEand I need your help,” Cruz wrote in an email to supporters this week.

More: Who will win the US Senate race in Texas? Polls show a tie between Ted Cruz and Colin Allred

But in a post on X, formerly Twitter, the incumbent president sought to downplay the importance of the Democratic committee’s involvement in the Texas contest.

“National Democrats coming from their ivory towers in New York, DC and California are telling Texans everything they need to know,” Cruz wrote in the post. “Like them, Colin Allred is simply a radical leftist with a radical past who would destroy Texas and hasten the decline of America.”

Which party will take control of the Senate?

Texas Republican Party veteran Matt Mackowiak said Cruz could lose the race, but added that the incumbent president, whose polling performance is worse than presidential candidate Donald Trump’s in Texas, should not take anything for granted.

“I think the Cruz race is closer than many of us would like,” Mackowiak said. “If Trump withdraws in Texas, which I think he will, I believe Cruz will be fine. I know he works hard. I know he is vastly outdone. And I think the race will follow a familiar pattern as we get closer to Election Day.”

A model of the Senate races this cycle, compiled by public opinion and data firm YouGov, shows Democrats doing better in several states they currently hold in the upper house of Congress. The model shows the Montana seat represented by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, likely switching to the Republican side. The GOP column is also expected to include West Virginia, where Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin is retiring.

More: Overlooked and disengaged: How the Gen Z labor bloc could influence the 2024 elections.

YouGov also lists races in Arizona, which has no incumbent organizer, and Ohio as toss-up races. No Republican-held Senate seats are shown as likely to be flipped or even tossed. However, both Texas and Florida are no longer included in the “safe Republican” column.

Heading into the election, Democrats have a 51-49 advantage in the Senate.

Nancy Zdunkewicz, a Texas Democratic pollster, said investing in Allred’s campaign makes sense. “With Montana slipping away, this is the best opportunity to flip a Senate seat,” she said.

Cruz and Allred will continue their strategy

Allred and Cruz, who will debate Oct. 15 in Dallas, have been running ads on television and digital platforms for several weeks. Cruz aired a 30-second spot this week titled “The Agony of Defeat,” which seeks to link Allred to the controversy in transgender sports and whether athletes born male should be allowed to play women’s sports or use bathrooms and locker rooms.

On Thursday, Allred released a spot titled “Wrist Tape,” which also has an athletics theme. Allred, a former NFL linebacker, is shown in the locker room taping his wrists as if he was about to wear his uniform for a football game, and writing inspirational words like “teamwork” and “responsibility” on them as a reminder of his values.

Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said that given the closeness of the race and less than a month until early voting begins on Oct. 21, much depends on both candidates on how the coming weeks play out.

“Cruz is a household name, and Allred is benefiting from that portion of the electorate that knows and dislikes Cruz,” Jones said. The flip side, he added, is that the Cruz camp may “be able to define Allred in a negative way in the eyes of some voters who know and dislike Cruz but know little about Allred. “

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