Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Former Rep. Colin Allred is jumping back into the Texas Senate race, after losing to Ted Cruz eight months ago.<\/p>\n
In a video released Tuesday<\/a>, Allred, who flipped a red-leaning district in 2018, pledged to take on \u201cpoliticians like [Texas Sen.] John Cornyn and [Attorney General] Ken Paxton,\u201d who \u201care too corrupt to care about us and too weak to fight for us,\u201d while pledging to run on an \u201canti-corruption plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats are hopeful that a messy Republican primary<\/a> \u2014 pitting Cornyn against Paxton, who has weathered multiple scandals<\/a> in office and leads in current polling<\/a> \u2014 could yield an opening for a party in search of offensive opportunities. But unlike in 2024, when Allred ran largely unopposed in the Senate Democratic primary, Democrats are poised to have a more serious and crowded primary field, which could complicate their shot at flipping the reliably red state.<\/p>\n Former astronaut Terry Virts announced his bid last week, when he took a swing at both parties in his announcement video<\/a>. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) has voiced interest<\/a>, while former Rep. Beto O\u2019Rourke, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 and 2022, has been headlining packed town halls. State Rep. James Talarico told POLITICO<\/a> he\u2019s \u201chaving conversations about how I can best serve Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n Allred, a former NFL player turned congressman, leaned heavily into his biography for his launch video. He retold the story of buying his mom a house once he turned pro, but said, \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t have to have a son in the NFL to own a home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFolks who play by the rules and keep the faith just can\u2019t seem to get ahead. But the folks who cut corners and cut deals \u2014 well, they\u2019re doing just fine,\u201d Allred continued. \u201cI know Washington is broken. The system is rigged. But it doesn\u2019t have to be this way. In six years in Congress, I never took a dime of corporate PAC money, never traded a single stock.\u201d<\/p>\n Turning Texas blue has long been a dream for Democrats, who argued the state\u2019s increasing diversity will help them eventually flip it. But Trump\u2019s significant inroads with Latino voters in Texas, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, may impede those hopes. Of the 10 counties that shifted the farthest right from the 2012 to 2024 presidential elections, seven are in Texas, according to a New York Times analysis<\/a>, including double-digit improvements in seven heavily Latino districts.<\/p>\n Early polling has found Allred leading Paxton by one percentage point in a head-to-head contest \u2014 though he trailed Cornyn by six points. The polling, commissioned by Senate Leadership Fund<\/a>, the GOP leadership-aligned super PAC that supports Cornyn, underscored Paxton\u2019s general election weakness while showing Cornyn losing to Paxton in the GOP primary.<\/p>\n