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Allred in Bigger Hole than Polls Show
after Best Federal Bid in Primary Vote
Capitol Inside
March 11, 2024
U.S. Rep. Colin Allred ran the most impressive race for Congress in the Lone Star State in round one when he beat a formidable foe in State Senator Roland Gutierrez and eight other Democrats in a bid for the right to square off with Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in the general election this fall.
While Cruz claimed the nomination in a third re-election bid with 88 percent of the GOP primary voters in a field with a pair of foes named Rufus and Redd, Allred was forced to overcome real competition on his side of the aisle with two other legislators as obstacles on a ballot with 10 names for the U.S. Senate.
In a contest that appeared at the outset to have a runoff in the making with State Senator Roland Gutierrez and Allred as the premier contenders, the congressional Democrat from Dallas captured almost 59 percent of the primary vote after building a lead that looked insurmountable by the time Texans flocked to the polls last week. Allred held Gutierrez below 17 percent while State Rep. Carl Sherman of DeSoto finished with a mere 3.3 percent in fifth.
Allred is the easy choice for best congressional candidate in the Capitol Inside Best of the Texas Primary Election in 2024 - with Democratic State Rep. Julie Johnson of Dallas as a solid second in an open race for the seat that the U.S. Senate nominee is giving up. Johnson escaped in Congressional District 32 without the runoff that had been widely expected - securing the nomination in a field of 10 with 50.4 percent of the first round tally.
Republican Brandon Gill ranks third in the Congress contestant sweepstakes here after a win over 10 primary foes in an open Congressional District 26 race in the northern suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Gill, whose address is listed as Alexandria, Virginia on his Federal Election Commission account, claimed 58 percent with the help of Donald Trump, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Cruz in the cheering section along with father-in-law Dinesh D'Sourza of the widely-debunked election denial film 2000 Mules fame.
Cruz can expect to be favored in the fall by virtue of the fact that he's a Republican in Texas. But Allred was a cut above all of the other contenders in the most crowded congressional contest lineups ever in a Texas primary election. And that includes the incumbent Republican who claimed a second term in 2018 when he beat Democrat Beto O'Rourke by less than 3 points after a couple of years as his own worst enemy.
Allred, who's Black, is a civil rights lawyer who played football for the Baylor Bears and several NFL teams. He's polished, charismatic and articulate - and he's proven to be a talented fundraiser in a similar league with the record-crushing O'Rourke. While Cruz has already raised as much campaign cash for the race as he did during the entire cycle in 2018, Allred has posted higher contribution totals than the Republican in the two most recent reports that he's filed with the FEC.
Allred also has shown a willingness to fight in the mud where the U.S. Senate race here will end up if he hopes to have any chance whatsoever at breaking the Democrats' statewide losing streak that began here in 1998. Cruz can expect to be on the defensive more than ever with Allred on the attack.
But Allred faces some highly imposing challenges that might require magic to overcome. Cruz for starters won 3.5 times more votes than the Democratic nominee at the polls last week. Cruz garnered 1,974,132 votes compared to 565,992 for Allred in the first round. Cruz and O'Rourke received 1,322,724 and 644,632 votes respectively in the primary election in 2018. Cruz's total shot up 49 percent while Allred finished on Tuesday was down 14 percent compared to O'Rourke's showing in the primary six years ago.
The number of total votes cast in the GOP primary in the U.S. Senate battle was 2.3 times higher in 2024 than the total count of ballots that were submitted across the aisle.
Cruz logged twice as many votes as O'Rourke in the primary election in 2018. Despite a loss at the top of the ticket that year, O'Rourke had historic coattails when Democrats picked up a dozen Texas House seats, two in the state Senate and two more in the U.S. House including the one Allred had to sacrifice as the price of higher ambitions as the underdog in the fight with Cruz.
Allred posted anemic showings in the heavily-Hispanic Rio Grande Valley where he settled for 22 percent of the vote in both Hidalgo and Cameron counties. Allred fared better in El Paso County with 39 percent last week. The number of votes in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Hidalgo and Cameron fell from 51,862 in 2018 to 45,211 last week.
Allred can take heart from two recent polls that showed him tied with Cruz heading into the primary vote. But the Democrat may have no chance at all if he really believes that.
The Best of the Texas Primary Election will be rolled out in single installments as per tradition here in recent election years. |
