You’re forgiven if you’ve forgotten than Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz is running for reelection this year. Six years ago, the phenomenon of Beto-mania was in full swing, as former Democratic U.S. representative Beto O’Rourke raised more money for a Senate campaign than anyone ever had before, and the national media’s gushing and cheerleading was almost impossible to parody. (Almost.)
This year, Cruz’s Democratic opponent is congressman Colin Allred, and if you look hard, you can find Democrats, and institutions like Newsweek, talking themselves into believing that Allred has a shot. “Ted Cruz Could Be Facing a Tougher Reelection Battle Than Expected.” But it’s harder for down ticket challengers to get attention in a presidential year, and since the Donald Trump-Joe Biden debate, it hasn’t exactly been a quiet summer, with Harris replacing Biden, Trump nearly getting assassinated, the JD Vance and Tim Walz selections, etc.
A decent number of Democrats got excited about a University of Houston survey, finding Cruz’s lead within the margin of error, 46.6 percent to 44.5 percent. But that survey wrapped up August 16; a Quantus poll that wrapped up August 30 found Cruz ahead, 50 percent to 43 percent, and an ActiVote survey that wrapped up August 29 found Cruz ahead, 55 percent to 45 percent.
Sure, Beto O’Rourke came close six years ago, with Cruz winning, 50.8 percent to 48.3 percent. But it’s easy to forget that Texas is such a populated state; that 2.5 percent margin amounted to 214,921 votes. That’s slightly larger than the population of Salt Lake City or Des Moines, slightly less than the population of Baton Rouge or Richmond, Va.
Does this guarantee that Cruz is going to win? No, but in a state where Democrats haven’t won a statewide election since 1994 (!), Allred does not look like a safe bet to break that streak.
What you can find in coverage of the race within Texas is a strange insistence that Allred is defying conventional wisdom by being barely available to the press, doing the opposite of what O’Rourke did, and this is somehow some ingenious strategy.
Texas Monthly: “In His Bid to Unseat Ted Cruz, Colin Allred Is Hardly Visible. Looks Like It’s Working.”
The Texas Tribune: “Colin Allred’s understated campaign strategy draws mixed reviews from fellow Democrats.”
The headline on the Texas Monthly article is cheerier than the assessment from their correspondent:
Shortly after the event ended, Allred left the hall—seemingly in a rush. But if it was to scurry off to another public appearance, that wasn’t advertised to the reporters trailing him that day. He wouldn’t host an event for the public until two days later, in Austin. Indeed, for an upstart candidate challenging one of the most high-profile incumbents in the country, Ted Cruz, Allred is running an abnormal campaign. He has rejected freewheeling town hall meetings. He’s dismissed the strategy favored by former Cruz opponent Beto O’Rourke, and is not making road trips to red rural areas trailed by an iPhone camera that broadcasts his every move to Facebook Live. He hosts few campaign rallies that would gin up enthusiasm among Texas’s liberals. After the roundtable in Houston, Allred allowed one question from each of the three reporters in attendance. Texas Monthly used its turn to ask why the representative was holding such small events. “I like to talk to people, and I like to hear from them how things are going,” Allred replied. “I don’t think Ted Cruz listens to anybody. I don’t think he has much interest in hearing from people.”
From this description, you might conclude Allred is running the state-level version of Kamala Harris’ vibes-heavy, policy-light campaign: “His website is heavy on biography and light on policy. He’s trying to run as a generic, largely uncontroversial Democratic candidate who, as one of his big appeals, isn’t named Ted Cruz.”
As laid out last week, the GOP odds of a tied Senate are extremely high (particularly if Jim Justice wins the West Virginia open seat race), and the odds of control of the Senate are quite high if Republican challenger Tim Sheehy beats Democratic incumbent Jon Tester in Montana.
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