By Gromer Jeffers Jr.
EL PASO – U.S. Rep. Colin Allred on Friday said Sen. Ted Cruz cares only about himself and not the needs of Texans, a pointed attack designed to unite Democrats around his effort to unseat the Republican incumbent.
Allred called Cruz a “me guy” who flew to Cancun during the state’s deadly winter storm in 2021 and “spends hundreds of hours podcasting because he thinks the sound of his voice is more important than doing the work for Texas families.”
“Unfortunately, Washington, D.C., is full of me guys,” Allred told delegates at the Texas Democratic Party’s convention in El Paso. “No one is more self-serving, more disconnected from Texans than Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is the ultimate me guy.”
If reelected, Cruz would work to raise the retirement age and cut Social Security and Medicare, Allred told delegates.
“When the lights went out in the energy capital of the world, only a me guy was thinking it’s OK to fly down to the Ritz Carlton in Cancun,” Allred said. “That’s not my Texas. In my Texas we believe that ‘we’ is more powerful than ‘me.’”
Allred’s convention speech came as Democrats pondered how to make political gains in Texas. The party hasn’t won a statewide race since 1994 despite a long list of hopeful candidates, including Beto O’Rourke, Wendy Davis, MJ Hegar, Bill White and Ron Kirk.
In 2018, O’Rourke lost to Cruz by 2.6 percentage points. The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Cruz leading Allred by 8.2 points.
Cruz’s campaign officials did not comment Friday on Allred’s speech but referred to an earlier news release that said Democrats were putting forth a “radical platform” focused on “unrestricted abortion and open borders.”
“Colin Allred and the Texas Democrats are putting their radical platform on display for all Texas voters to see,” campaign officials said. “Colin Allred has shown Texans just how extreme he really is and they won’t forget it come November.”
In response, Allred’s campaign aides said the Democrat is not for open borders and supports restoring abortion rights to the standard outlined in Roe v. Wade, a ruling the Supreme Court reversed in 2022.
Allred, a former NFL linebacker and Baylor football standout, on Friday officially accepted the Democratic nomination for Senate, calling it his honor. He grew up in Dallas and went to Hillcrest High School. His mother was a teacher, and his family navigated difficult situations, including the need for affordable health care.
“I know that a story like mine is only possible in Texas, a state that was once a country, a state that was once in the grips of Jim Crow, and then produced the president who ended it,” he said. “I stand before you now as our nominee. And with God’s grace, and with your help. I will become the first African American to ever represent our great state in the United States Senate.”
Allred’s keynote address ended a long evening of remarks, and by the time he closed the general session, many delegates had left.
How to beat Cruz was an issue in the Democratic Senate primary. Allred stressed the need for bipartisan solutions. His main rival, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio, called that approach fantasy. Allred won the nine-candidate primary without a runoff.
Still, there are issues that threaten to fragment Democrats in November, including immigration and border security, the environment and foreign policy, though much of that didn’t come up in Allred’s speech.
Allred supports building barriers along the nation’s southern border “when they make sense,” and he’s chided President Joe Biden for not doing more to stem the flow of migrants and illegal crossings.
“I don’t pursue bipartisanship just for the sake of it,” Allred said. “It’s how you get things done. That’s what Texans expect in their leaders, that you roll up your sleeves and get to work, just like they do every single day.”
Reproductive rights was a big theme at Friday’s general session.
In August 2022, Amanda Zurawski was 18 weeks pregnant when she learned a medical condition made miscarriage inevitable. Because her life was not in danger, Zurawski said, doctors told her they could not perform an abortion.
She returned to the hospital three days later in septic shock.
“I nearly died on the watch of Ted Cruz, [U.S. Sen.] John Cornyn and mad Republicans in Texas,” Zurawski told delegates. “Time and again, Republicans insist that the law is working as intended. The reality is that the chaos unleashed across the country is causing pain, suffering, trauma and grief.”
Last month the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court ruled against Zurawski and 19 other women who sued, arguing the state’s ban on abortions delayed or denied medically necessary abortions.
“Republicans showed us how they feel about women and pregnant people,” Zurawski said. “In Texas, it’s time to show them how we feel about their job performance.”
Friday was the biggest night of the three-day convention, and most of the major speakers urged unity to defeat former President Donald Trump and Republicans.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told Texas Democrats to keep fighting to flip the state blue, a mantra their counterparts in Michigan embraced en route to statewide victories in 2020 and 2022. Two years ago, Democrats won control of the state House and Senate for the first time in 40 years, and voters approved protections for abortion rights.
“Through it all we never stopped hustling. We kept doing the work,” Whitmer said.
“Texas Democrats, I feel the same hunger for change in this state,” she added. “I see the same future for all of you in the Lone Star State.”
Whitmer then borrowed a phrase from the late former Gov. Ann Richards.
“I’ve been tested by the fire and the fire lost,” Whitmer quoted Richards as once saying. “I promise you Texas Democrats, if you keep fighting, if you keep clawing for progress one yard at a time, you will beat the fire.”
Whitmer and U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, were among the few speakers who gave full-throated praise of Biden. Escobar and Whitmer are co-chairs of Biden’s reelection campaign.
“We need to make sure that we don’t wake up with the same level of dread and horror that we woke up with the day after Donald Trump was elected,” Escobar said. “We cannot go back. … We cannot let that happen.”
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
