Ted Cruz calls Senate rival Colin Allred too insignificant in Congress to bother with
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ted Cruz shrugged off Rep. Colin Allred as a challenger so inconsequential that they’ve never even crossed paths despite over four years together in Congress.
Allred launched his 2024 Senate bid Wednesday by promising Texans they don’t have to be embarrassed anymore by their senator.
The Dallas Democrat’s opening salvo included accusations that Cruz egged on Jan. 6 rioters then cowered from them, prefers to “whip up phony culture wars” over addressing real problems, and fled to Cancun as Texans suffered during a deadly blizzard.
“It’s not surprising that a Democrat starts his campaign with personal insults,” Cruz said at the Capitol a few hours after Allred formally announced the effort to deprive him of a third term.
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“He can’t talk about his record, can’t talk about policy. He can’t talk about substance. So I imagine we’ll see lots of insults from this very partisan Democrat.… I don’t intend to reciprocate. But what I will do is talk about the policies he supports that hurt Texans,” Cruz said.
Allred launched his campaign with a lengthy video casting himself as a pragmatic, bipartisan problem solver. Cruz says he has no idea what, if anything, the former civil rights lawyer and pro football player has done since winning his seat in 2018, the year Texans gave Cruz his own second 6-year term.
Although they’ve served together since Jan. 2019, Cruz reiterated when pressed that not only haven’t they worked together, they don’t even know each other.
“He’s been a Democrat congressman from Dallas who’s done very little. I’ve had no occasion to interact with him because he’s not been involved in many significant issues in his limited time here,” the senator said.
Allred campaign spokesman Joshua Stewart said Cruz’s lack of constructive interaction with Allred reflects on the senator, not the congressman.
“That’s not a unique thing for Colin,” he said. “There’s many others who feel the same.”
He cited gun safety legislation Allred and GOP Sen. John Cornyn supported after the Uvalde school massacre, the massive bipartisan expansion of federal support for the U.S. semiconductor industry, his work to expand Texas veterans facilities with Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Midlothian, and creation of the Garland VA Medical Center in collaboration with the Trump administration.
“He’s won the Hamilton Jefferson Award from the US Chamber of Commerce for bipartisanship. And he’s been endorsed by both the chamber and the AFL CIO. That’s a bridge builder. That’s a consensus maker,” Stewart said. “That is something Ted Cruz cannot claim.”
Cruz’s predecessor in the Senate, fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, regularly hosted lunches for the entire Texas delegation that brought together officials from both parties. Partisanship has grown since then. Lawmakers no longer refer proudly to “Team Texas” at the Capitol.
Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on June 24, 2020. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / ASSOCIATED PRESS)
On Election Night 2018, Cruz barely survived a challenge from another three-term Democratic congressman, El Paso’s Beto O’Rourke.
A chastened Cruz promised the 49% who opposed him that “I am your senator as well.”
Instead, Allred says in his opening attack: “He wants to divide us.”
Allred contrasted his own actions on Jan. 6, 2021, with Cruz’s. The former NFL linebacker called his wife during the siege to say goodbye as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, and took off his jacket, ready to tackle anyone who got into the House chamber.
The video shows a clip of Cruz vowing that “we will not go quietly into the night.”
“He cheered on the mob, then hid in a supply closet when they stormed the Capitol. But that’s Ted for you. All hat, no cattle,” Allred says.
Cruz called that untrue.
“The accusations are false, and they’re silly,” he said, noting that the damning clip wasn’t from Jan. 6, nor directed at rioters.
“That was me at a voter turnout rally in Georgia” on Jan. 4, urging Georgians to cast ballots the next day in a U.S. Senate runoff, Cruz said. “I was telling voters don’t go quietly into the night, show up and vote. For a Democrat to deliberately twist that is dishonest. Now, I don’t expect the media to fact check it.”
As for hiding in a closet, Cruz rejected that as untrue, as well.
“I and all of the senators went to a secure location when the Capitol Police moved us. We were there for hours. At one point -- and I described this in my book -- the group of 11 who were objecting [to Biden’s electoral victory], we looked for a place to huddle, and we pulled into a side room. It wasn’t a closet. …We were in a room with 200 people and we went into a side room to have a private conversation.”
As the campaign begins, Cruz is taking much the same tack as he did with O’Rourke.
In a donor email blast, Cruz called Allred a “radical leftist” who would unleash undocumented migrants and IRS agents to prey on Texans, “wants men to compete in women’s sports,” would ease penalties for murder and sexual assault, and “wants to ban law-abiding Texans from owning rifles.”
At the Capitol, he cast Allred as too liberal for the state, “a candidate who has voted with Nancy Pelosi in absolute lockstep… The people of Texas don’t support trillions and spending in debt and rapid inflation. The people of Texas don’t support open borders. And the people of Texas don’t support leftwing assaults on oil and gas production.… The people of Texas definitely don’t support a soft-on-crime agenda that releases violent murderers and rapists into the communities.”
Source: The Dallas Morning News
