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Texas’ largest newspaper gives 'bipartisan' Cruz challenger glowing endorsement

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The stakes were high Tuesday night as U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz, seeking re-election to a third term, met for their first and only debate. Allred, 41, a civil rights attorney and former NFL linebacker repeatedly knocked down Cruz, 53, running for a third term in office. The U.S. Senate majority is expected to be decided by possibly just two seats.

“WFAA issued a new poll for the more than 40,000 viewers on the YouTube livestream asking who won the debate,” MySanAntonio.com reported. “More than 25,000 viewers voted with 67 percent saying Allred while 33 percent said Cruz won the debate.”

Cruz is leading Allred in the latest polls by two to five points, according to FiveThirtyEight.

The Dallas Morning News called the debate “combative,” saying the candidates “attacked each other’s positions and character as they sparred over hot-button issues that included abortion, immigration and the economy.”

Congressman Allred accused Senator Cruz, whose podcast deal allegedly may have violated campaign finance laws, with having “introduced this new kind of angertainment, where you just get people upset and then you podcast about it and you write a book about it and you make some money on it, but you’re not actually there when people need you.”

“Like when the lights went out, when 30 million Texans were relying on a senator to spring into action, he went to Cancun. That’s who he is.”

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Allred attacked Cruz on abortion, one of the top issues for voters.

“I want to be very clear to the people of Texas. I support the protections and the restrictions under Roe,” Congressman Allred said. “But Senator Cruz just called himself pro-life. You’re not. You’re not pro-life. It’s not pro-life to deny women care so long that they can’t have children anymore. It’s not pro-life to force a victim of rape to carry their rapist’s baby. It’s not pro-life that our maternal mortality rate has skyrocketed up by 56%. That’s not pro-life, Senator.”

“So to every Texas woman at home and every Texas family watching this, understand that when Ted Cruz says he’s pro-life, he doesn’t mean yours.”

That line flew across social media countless times, with people posting and reposting the quote and videos of that moment.

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Another line that went viral across social media was Allred prosecuting Cruz over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, declaring the Texas Senator a “threat to democracy.”

“I have to say, you can’t be for the mob on January 6th and for the officers. You can’t,” Allred declared, as Cruz nervously chuckled. “And it’s not funny. ’cause you’re a threat to democracy.”

“Sure,” Cruz replied, and he began to laugh.

“I was on the House floor when we went through the votes. I remember when you objected to the results in Arizona. Y’all at home might remember where you were on January 6th, what you were doing. I know where I was and I know where he was.”

“I remember when they told us to reach under our seats for these gas masks, I didn’t know we had because they had deployed tear gas in the rotunda. The officers locked all the doors, we barred the doors,” Allred said. “And I texted my wife, Ali, who was seven months pregnant with our son, Cameron, and at home with our son Jordan, who wasn’t yet two. ‘Whatever happens, I love you.'”

“I took off my suit jacket and I was prepared to defend the House floor from the mob. At the same time after he’d gone around the country lying about the election, after he’d been the architect of the attempt to overthrow that election, when that mob came, Senator Cruz was hiding in a supply closet.”

Cruz, again chuckling, shook his head.

“And that’s okay. I don’t want him to get hurt by the mob. I really don’t. This election is his accountability. You cannot be just be patriotic when your side wins,” Allred said. “If, for the first time in 250 years, this project of ours, this shared American project, that we did not have a peaceful transfer of power, the folks responsible have to be held accountable. That’s why Liz Cheney has endorsed me, has got involved in this campaign, is saying to Texans everywhere, ‘Do not put Ted Cruz back in a position of authority.’ Because he’s done it once, he’ll do it again.”

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The focus on reproductive healthcare continued, with Allred slamming Cruz for supporting Texas’s abortion ban.

“Listen, it’s time to finally tell the truth here. Senator Cruz just looked into a camera and lied to Texans about my position,” Allred told voters, as Cruz chuckled. “Let’s be very clear, you should look into the camera and speak to Kate Cox, who’s watching right now and explain to her why you said that this law that you said is perfectly reasonable, why she was forced to leave her two children behind and flee our state to get the care that she needed, or look into the camera and talk to the Amanda Zurawski, who’s watching right now, and explain to her why it’s perfectly reasonable that because she had a complication in her pregnancy and was denied care so long that she may never be able to have children of her own, or to the 26,000 Texas women who have been forced to give birth to their rapist’s child under this law that you call perfectly reasonable.”

“It’s not. This is not freedom. I trust Texas women to make their own health care decisions,” Allred continued. “You know, Allie and I had two baby boys here in Dallas in the last five years. You’re scared the entire time. You don’t know what they’re gonna say, but I can’t imagine if the doctor would come in so there’s a problem with the baby or a problem with Allie, but there’s nothing I can do because Ted Cruz thinks he knows better.”

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Allred also blasted Cruz over in-vitro fertilization (IVF), an issue that has also dogged—and split—Republicans.

“IVF didn’t need protecting until he got his way of going after it,” the Texas Democrat charged. “No one was thinking that we need to protect IVF until he was singularly responsible for pursuing, by putting place in place judges at the district court level, the circuit court level and the supreme court level, folks who would put at risk, this miracle technology. And you know what? It’s not just that. When he ran for President in 2016, he supported the personhood amendment. You know what that means? That would make something like IVF illegal, but also ban certain forms of birth control. You did. You did.”

Cruz interjected: “No, fundamentally false.”

“When you ran for president in 2016, you could look it up, folks,” Allred replied. “You don’t have to believe me. Again. You’ve been seeing him lie to you for 12 years. Let’s have a senator who doesn’t.”

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Ultimately, Allred branded Cruz with a Texas saying, calling him “all hat and no cattle,” meaning, “all show and no substance.”

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Watch the videos above or at this link.

Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred faced off with incumbent, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Tuesday night, and things got heated when Allred slammed the Republican senator's blatant hypocrisy.

You can't be for the mob on January 6 and for the officers. You can't. And it's not funny. Because you're a threat to democracy. I was on the House floor when we went through the votes. I remember when you objected to the results in Arizona.

A poll released by last month by the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation(TxHPF) showed Allred trailing Cruz by only 3 percent.

Regina Montoya, a member of the TxHPF Board of Directors, told WFAA that "the dynamism of the Harris campaign has had an obvious down ballot impact in the Allred vs. Cruz race, where Colin is now effectively tied with Cruz going into the final days of the campaign."

In August, "Allred recalled the day the Capitol was attacked — noting that he played in the National Football League before serving in Congress," during an interview with Baptist News.

"When you're a former professional football player in a situation like that," Allred said, "people will unsurprisingly look to you for protection. So I took my suit jacket off and got ready to take on whatever came through that door."

The Democratic hopeful continued, "That day, we came closer to losing our democracy than a lot of people realize, and Ted Cruz is responsible for that. He spread the lie that the election was stolen and was the senator who objected to the certification of the results in an attempt to overturn the will of the American people. But when the mob stormed the Capitol, he hid in a supply closet."

READ MORE:[Ted Cruz dodges key issue that’s become major 'political liability' for GOP

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Colin Allred says Ted Cruz 'hid in a supply closet' while Jan. 6 rioters stormed the Capitol

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Additionally, Democrats recruited a dream candidate in Colin Allred. A former linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, Allred left the NFL to pursue law and became a civil rights attorney, working for President Barack Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The upshot is that Sessions' seat is now rated a toss-up by the Cook Political Report. And as the CLF's ad buy makes clear, any bravado the GOP might have had about keeping this seat without outside spending or serious effort seems to have flown out the window.

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GOP targets Texas Dem who turned Dallas-area US House seat blue

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Written by Patrick Svitek / The Texas Tribune July 29, 2019

By Patrick Svitek, The Texas Tribune

July 29, 2019

“GOP opposition to Colin Allred starts to take shape after he turned a Dallas-area U.S. House seat blue” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The Republican primary to challenge U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, is finally starting to take shape.

One candidate, former Navy SEAL Floyd McLendon, entered the race Monday. And more announcements are expected before the end of the summer as the opposition begins to crystallize for what will be an uphill battle. Allred easily flipped the 32nd District last year as he unseated U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas.

The national GOP is targeting the district in 2020, though compared to Texas’ seven other battleground congressional races, the challenger lineup has been slow to develop. Republicans have waited to see if Sessions attempts a comeback and have been sizing up the political landscape of a presidential-election year in bluer and bluer Dallas County.

“I think it will be a tough race but is winnable by Republicans,” said Wade Emmert, former chairman of the county GOP. “It’s always true that turnout drives the result, but that is probably more true with President Trump on the ballot. To win, a Republican candidate will have to embrace the Republican base, including Trump, but differentiate himself or herself enough to speak to the specific issues of TX-32.”

In an interview, McLendon argued that TX-32 is “still a Republican district” — that 2018 was a “fluke” — and pitched his “outside perspective on how to solve our nation’s problems” given his extensive military background.

“I look at this as a natural progression of serving — 25 years in the military, 15 years as a Navy SEAL,” said McLendon, who now works as motivational author and speaker. “Throughout that time, I’ve learned the importance of trusted leadership, and quite frankly I think our political system is broken. Career politicians are not holding themselves accountable, speaking one way to their district and then go to Washington and vote another way.”

McLendon charged Allred with already behaving that way by voting for Nancy Pelosi for speaker and voicing support for the Green New Deal, the sweeping plan to combat climate change spearheaded by freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. Allred backed Pelosi for speaker late last year after taking a noncommittal stance toward her potential return to power during his campaign. As for the Green New Deal, he said earlier this year he “certainly support[s] some of the goals” of the proposal but that he wanted to see more specifics.

“Representative Allred is focused on working with Republicans and Democrats to get things done for North Texans, like lowering the costs of health care and prescription drugs, repairing our infrastructure, and cleaning up corruption,” Allred campaign manager Paige Hutchinson said in a statement in response to McLendon’s launch.

McLendon is the first of multiple Republicans who could launch campaigns to take on Allred in the coming weeks. Genevieve Collins, an executive at an education technology company in Dallas, has said she is “strongly considering” a run and has indicated she could make an announcement by the end of the month. Former state Rep. Dan Branch of Dallas is also taking a close look at the primary and is planning to make a decision late next month.

Another potential candidate is Beth Van Duyne, the former Irving mayor who now holds a regional job for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“I’m grateful to continue hearing from people who are encouraging me to be a candidate but I have nothing new to say at this point,” Van Duyne said Friday.

Already running for the 32nd District is Tania Burgess, an ardent Trump supporter. She has raised less than $10,000 since entering the primary in March but quickly got the attention of Allred’s campaign, who has alluded to her as an “extreme, far-right” challenger in fundraising emails.

Allred has made clear he is ready for whomever Republicans nominate, raising close to $600,000 in the second quarter as he amassed a reelection war chest approaching $1 million. And national Democrats, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, stand ready to defend him after their hard-fought victory last cycle.

“As Dallas County Republicans panic over the possibility of Pete Sessions attempting a doomed political ‘comeback,’ Colin Allred is getting results for North Texas by working across the aisle and listening to Texas families about the issues that matter to them,” DCCC spokesman Avery Jaffe said in a statement.

Sessions looms large, even as some Republicans express unease with another run by the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, who lost by 6.5 percentage points last cycle after initially brushing off the extent of the threat he faced. He has not said much publicly about the 2020 primary, though his most recent comments — published in June by the National Journal — sounded like he was running but not ready to announce yet.

Sessions still has $331,000 in his campaign account and continued to pay his 2018 deputy campaign manager through June.

For a period, it looked like Sessions could face a primary battle against Allen West, the former Florida congressman who now lives in North Texas. But earlier this month, West announced he was instead exploring a run for Texas GOP chairman, taking himself out of the TX-32 speculation game for the time being — and depriving Democrats of a bombastic firebrand against which they were eager to run.

Texas Democrat Colin Allred defeats GOP incumbent Pete Sessions in key U.S. House race

For both parties, the race between U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions and Colin Allred is bigger than one seat

Colin Allred talks football and his congressional campaign

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/29/republican-primary-challenge-colin-allred-starts-take-shape/.

Texas Tribune mission statement

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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