Cruz opponent Allred tries to thread needle with Democratic convention appearance

CHICAGO — Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who is locked in a tight Senate race against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), is trying to thread the needle by appearing at the Democratic National Convention to rally voters for Vice President Harris while also trying to avoid getting swept up in the controversies surrounding her record.

Democratic officials announced Thursday morning that Allred is scheduled to speak at the United Center before Harris addresses the nation on the final night of the four-day convention.

Allred is likely hoping that Harris will help energize Democratic, young and minority voters in Texas, but he’s being careful not to cleave to his party’s nominee so closely that it could become a liability in the race.

Allred and his team had kept his plans to speak at the Democratic National Convention quiet. The Quorum Report, which has covered Texas politics since 1983, reported earlier this month that Allred's team asked that his name not be advertised among the members of Congress and governors slated to speak at the convention and that he did not initially appear on the list of speakers set to address the state delegation in Chicago.

Other Democrats in tough races, namely Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jacky Rosen (Nev.), opted to skip the convention.

The 41-year-old Texas representative spoke briefly at the Texas delegation breakfast Thursday morning and met with Texas press after the event.

His team did not make him available more generally to field questions about some of the top issues dominating the presidential race, such as Harris’s proposal to crack down on corporate price gouging, which Republicans have attacked as socialist-leaning price controls.

He entered and departed the large breakfast room, where Texas delegates enjoyed plates of scrambled eggs and bacon, by a side door leading to the kitchen, providing him with a route to avoid any questions about Harris’s record on the border or other hot-button topics.

Cruz, Allred’s opponent, has accused him of dodging the media, dubbing him “Can’t Comment Colin” and knocking him earlier this month for not holding a press conference for 52 days.

Allred’s campaign pushed back by pointing out that Cruz only allowed the media to ask two questions during a recent campaign stop in Abilene and declined to answer written questions about abortion from the San Antonio Express-News.

The campaign says it has done 30 open press events and interviews in July and August.

A poll released Thursday by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs and Texas Southern University showed Cruz narrowly leading Allred with 46.6 percent support to 44.5 percent; 6.4 percent of voters were undecided.

The survey showed Allred with a 7-point lead over Cruz with women and Cruz leading Allred by 13 percentage points among men.

The same poll showed Trump leading Harris in Texas by 5 percentage points, 49.5 percent to 44.6 percent.

With Tester facing an uphill reelection race in Montana, Democratic senators increasingly think that their hopes of hanging onto the majority may boil down to the Texas Senate race.  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a briefing with reporters Tuesday touted Allred’s prodigious fundraising effort.

“Texas, he’s raising a ton of money. Colin Allred is really doing well because people don’t like Ted Cruz around the country and many small donors are sending in their $10 and $15 and $20 there,” Schumer said. “Are Republicans going to have to put some money to defend Cruz?”

Allred had raised $41.2 million and Cruz had raised $40 million by the end of June, though Cruz had a cash-on-hand advantage of $14.2 million to Allred’s $10.5 million.

Allred has tried to keep Harris at arm's length while Cruz has tried to tie his opponent to the top of the Democratic ticket.

In 2019, Harris endorsed "Medicare for All" and changing the Senate’s filibuster rule to pass the sweeping Green New Deal.

When asked about Harris’s campaign a few weeks ago during an MSNBC interview, Allred kept his answer short: “Vice President Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and I’ve known her for some time, and I support her nomination.”

He has bristled at times when asked about Harris while trying to keep his campaign narrowly focused on the issues most important to his home state.

When a writer for The Texas Tribune asked him earlier this month whether he’d engage with Harris about the border, Allred replied: “Why do y’all want to talk about the Harris campaign so much? I’ve got my own race. Honestly?”

Republicans say that Allred is trying to have it both ways by endorsing Harris and speaking on the convention stage while staying quiet about elements of her campaign agenda.

“Colin Allred rushed out of the gate to endorse Kamala Harris, the farthest left Democrat nominee in American history, and now he’s hiding from the media because he can’t defend her extreme agenda. The fact is Allred has supported every radical Harris-Biden policy from banning fracking to halting [liquefied natural gas] exports to mass amnesty and he owes Texans some answers,” National Republican Senatorial Campaign spokesperson Philip Letsou said.

Harris endorsed Allred in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles and donated $2,500 from her leadership PAC to his campaign. He has praised her in the past as an “incredible leader.”

Texas state Sen. César Blanco (D), a surrogate for Allred, said Cruz is trying to nationalize the race because the latest polling shows him in trouble.

“Colin is not focusing on anything other than Texas. He’s been spending time traveling throughout the state, visiting with mayors and visiting with constituents and voters. That is his primary focus,” he said.

“Ted Cruz wants to nationalize this because Ted Cruz knows he’s in trouble. There was a recent poll that was just released today that shows him in real trouble,” he added. “He definitely wants to nationalize the race.”

Allred spoke for 10 minutes Thursday at the Texas delegation breakfast. He talked about his life story, being raised by a single mom and his football career with the Titans.

He told the assembled delegates that he was proud of them for making a strong showing on the convention floor.

And he talked about the stories of Texas women who have suffered under the state’s strict six-week abortion ban.

He talked about his work on voting rights, which is a top priority of the Harris campaign, but he didn’t talk about the nominee or the other issues in the race, such as tax policy, the Gaza war, or next steps to curtail carbon emissions.

If elected, he pledged to “restore a women’s right to choose” and “protect Medicare and Social Security,” and he told delegates “we’re going to secure our border and pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

Allred has also said he would support changing the Senate’s filibuster rule to pass legislation to codify Roe v. Wade.

But while he side-stepped some of the hot-button policy topics of the race, he highlighted the closeness of the Texas Senate race, noting that the margin is tight enough that an energetic get-out-the vote campaign could push him to victory.

“Just today we had a poll come out showed us within 2 points [of Cruz]. You know what that means? I’ll tell you what that means. That is a field margin,” he said. “A field margin is how many doors you can knock, how many phone calls you can make, how many fellow Texans you can get involved.

“I need y’all’s help,” he implored. “I need you to take this same energy, this same belief, this same unity that you’ve shown throughout this convention … Take that to Austin, Texas, for 75 days and let’s beat Ted Cruz.”