When Texans go to cast their ballots, a lot of eyes are focused on what could be a bellwether race for Texas politics: the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Ted Cruz.
The Republican incumbent faces a challenge from Democrat Colin Allred, who’s currently U.S. Congressman for the 32nd District – and also has name recognition beyond that district as a former pro football player.
So far this year, Allred seems to be running a somewhat less-than-conventional campaign. Unlike Beto O’Rourke, the last high-profile Democrat to challenge Cruz, Allred isn’t making a lot of public appearances. In fact, he’s rejected those freewheeling town hall meetings, he hosts few campaign rallies, and even at the smaller, policy-focused events he’s held, journalists are granted minimal access.
So how is this strategy working?
Alexandra Samuels, a senior editor at Texas Monthly, said there can be benefits to being less visible.
“Allred is on the ground hosting events and speaking to voters,” she said. “But in a state like Texas, being more of an unknown quantity, I think, can be a benefit. This is how I think about it: In an era of such negative partisanship, it’s possible that in this race, Allred can run as a sort of generic Democrat.
“And if he does that successfully, he might be able to pick out voters who don’t like Cruz, plus Democratic partisans while alienating as few voters as possible, especially the most conservative ones in the reddest parts of the state.”
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Samuels said that negative partisanship can be a powerful force against candidates if they come out strong and give their challenger the opportunity to define them as a sort of “other.” And according to polls, Allred’s strategy appears to be working.
“Even before President Biden dropped out of the race, polls showed that this was likely to be something that was determined by a single-digit margin,” Samuels said. “Last month, the University of Houston and TSU found that Allred was behind Cruz by only 2 percentage points — that was within its margin of error.
“Another recent survey from the Texas Politics Project had Allred behind Cruz by 8 points. And then there was a third survey by Emerson College that had Allred down by about 4 percentage points.”
Allred has also tread carefully when it comes to aligning himself with national Democratic politicians, including Vice President and presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
“Prior to his DNC speech, it didn’t seem like he was one of the Democrats really pushing for Biden to drop out or really embracing Harris until after a decision had already been made at the national level,” Samuels said. “At the DNC, he definitely embraced her. He endorsed her candidacy and spoke a few minutes before she went on stage.
“So it seems like he’s more Team Harris, but he is definitely clear in the fact that he will call out his party if he doesn’t agree with certain policy decisions that they make.”
On the other side of the aisle, Cruz is embracing a new campaign strategy as well this year.
“One thing I found interesting about Cruz’s campaign this year in particular is that he’s really touting his bipartisan accomplishments and trying to appeal to voters on either side of the aisle,” Samuels said. “Anyone who has covered Cruz while he’s been in Congress knows that this pivot to the middle is a little ironic, given that he has a sort of reputation for being a culture war crusader.
“But again, given how close his margin of victory was in 2018 – he only beat Beto O’Rourke then by about 3 percentage points – it makes sense that he’d try to rebrand and bring as many voters as possible over to his side.”
Alexandra Samuels will be joining Texas Standard for an event at Hole in the Wall in Austin on Thursday, Sept. 12, focused on issues important to young voters. Check out the details about our Poll Party in partnership with KUTX and KVRX.
