Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX-32) will meet in their only head-to-head debate matchup on Tuesday night, which comes as millions flow into the state and polls show a competitive bout between the two heavyweights for Cruz’s U.S. Senate seat.
Here are three things to watch as the pair squares off.
The Bipartisanship-Off
Cruz and Allred have spent much of the campaign fashioning themselves as bipartisan. For Cruz, who’s been among the most outspoken and divisive politicians in American politics for a while now, the uphill climb is steeper. But Texas’ junior senator has spent this cycle touting business issues like bringing microchip manufacturing back stateside and facilitating their assembly in Texas.
Others include a focus on development of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence centers both in Texas and around the U.S. Crime and public safety have played a big role in his messaging as well, particularly related to the murder of 12-year-old Houstonian Jocelyn Nungaray allegedly at the hands of illegal immigrants.
Cruz has also launched a “Democrats for Cruz” initiative, headlined by outgoing Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Allred has his own crossover coalition, too. Headlining his “Republicans for Allred” group are former congressional members Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.
The Democrat touts the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure spending that flowed from it. Allred’s also shown a willingness to break with his party and the Biden administration on the border, the foremost issue in the State of Texas.
The different styles will be fascinating to watch: Cruz is skilled and practiced at debating, and it’s impossible to get Allred off-message.
Much of the debate is likely to encompass the pair projecting their bipartisan bonafides, using their respective styles to get the point across to the viewing audience.
Wedge Issue Jabs
Both camps have settled on their home stretch wedge issues, which either side believes reduces the other’s lukewarm support or undecided numbers.
For Allred, that issue has long been abortion. His campaign has run multiple ads featuring Texas women who’ve sued the state over its abortion restrictions since the overturning of Roe v. Wade — highlighting each’s health complications while pregnant that, for one reason or another, led to them obtaining an abortion or removing a deceased fetus.
Allred’s explained he wants a return to the Roe-based viability standard and has tried to label Cruz as a radical on the issue. The words “Ted Cruz’s abortion ban” are frequently repeated on the airwaves.
The issue polls well for Democrats as the previous status quo under Roe snapped into a new, substantially different status quo marked by a patchwork of laws across the states. Republicans across the country realize the polling problem they face on the issue, and most have turned to messaging akin to “this is a state issue and should be settled there.”
Meanwhile, Cruz has avoided the primary part of the issue and has pivoted to an ancillary aspect of it: in vitro fertilization (IVF). Cruz filed legislation aimed at protecting IVF across the country and it’s the battleground on which he’s chosen to fight.
Allred will surely jab Cruz with the issue, citing the women who’ve made up his “Women for Allred” campaign headliners. How well will Cruz deflect or rebut the attacks? If he doesn’t, expect the clip to make the next Allred television ad.
In the other corner, Cruz’s wedge issue is trained on biological males competing in girls’ sports — and the right hook with it appears to have landed.
Allred voted against the “Protection for Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023” — along with a handful of similarly oriented votes taken or stances made — and Cruz will not let him forget it. He and the Texas GOP put $6.7 million behind attack ads on the issue.
The punch landed because, as internal polling shows, the issue tops the list of those that move undecided voters away from Allred and possibly toward Cruz.
Republicans across the country are running ads on the same topic, presenting a particularly sharp jab against Democrats in red states. Allred felt the need to directly rebuff Cruz’s ads with his own, showing its effectiveness.
Expect Cruz to press Allred on this, even if moderators fail to bring it up. And if Allred responds, it’s likely to be the same carefully written language — “I do not support boys in girls’ sports” — used in the ad as an attempt to straddle the line between two fault points on the issue.
Given its nature, the whole race is a knife fight, but particularly so on these two issues where each candidate sees a clear advantage over the other.
Does It Even Matter?
There’s little chance that true undecided voters actually tune into the debate at any meaningful rate. Debates are usually a spectacle for those most in-tune, and thus most likely to already have picked a side.
But the advantage or disadvantage in them comes increasingly after the fact. Are there any gaffes or viral moments that can be churned out on social media and blasted across the airwaves? With such a divided electorate, post-debate bumps are less and less of a phenomenon. But campaigns have gotten good at leveraging rocky debate performances by their opponents into additional ammunition.
WFFA will let us know how many Texans watched after the fact, but more important is whether any significant slip-ups happen that appear on television Wednesday morning.
Debates are usually fruitless for incumbents who feel comfortable where they’re at, so the fact that Cruz is actually participating shows how formidable Allred’s run has been. The sheer amount of money the Democrat has raised has propelled his candidacy into a competitive fall. But he needs more to leverage with three weeks to go.
For his part, Cruz hopes to stamp out any hopes Allred might have for supplementing his political ammunition, and in doing so put himself in a good spot ahead of early voting.
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