Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and former Rep. Colin Allred (D) faced off Tuesday in the only debate before Election Day, marking the start of a surprising race that could help decide control of the Senate this year. Among the signs, they sparred over borders and abortion. autumn.
Allred, a three-term congressman and former NFL player, has gained momentum in red states, offering a glimmer of hope for an opportunity to expand support for Democrats bracing for the potential loss of vulnerable incumbents elsewhere. giving.
Cruz is seeking a third term in the Senate with support from former President Donald Trump and remains the favorite to win. But The Hill/Decision Desk headquarters Texas poll average shows him leading by just 2.8 points.
The debate showdown comes shortly after the Cook Political Report moved the Senate race into toss-up territory, with Democrats become more and more bullish About the race.
heated debate
Sparks flew repeatedly during the hour-long debate, where rivals attacked each other's records and clashed over important issues such as abortion.
Cruz's 2021 trip to Cancun caused Allred to wobble several times as Texas faced power outages and subzero temperatures, but the ill-timed trip hurt his re-election bid and Allred says he can't be trusted. reinforced the larger message of Mr. Cruz repeatedly directed viewers to a website criticizing his competitor, All-Radical Record.
At one point in the debate over the southern border, Mr. Allred used his time to ask Mr. Cruz questions and grill the incumbent on his reasons for doing so. Didn't support border security bill earlier this year.
“That's a great question,” Cruz said, asking Allred to take some time to answer it. (Alred declined.) When it was his turn to take the microphone, Cruz accused Allred of “memorizing his lines so well.” He later said the lawmaker “yelled at me” after a particularly tense exchange about Cruz “hiding in a supply closet” during the Jan. 6 riot, but Allred He alleged that the senator was complicit in the incitement.
“It’s the far left,” Cruz said. “They're so angry right now. There's so much hate.”
Candidates paint each other as extremes
With 11 percent of voters still undecided, according to polls last week, both candidates cast themselves as rational people with bipartisan instincts and their opponents as dangerous radicals. I tried to play in the middle.
“Congressman Allred wants to destroy what we've gained in Texas because he shares the values of Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris. And I will fight to keep Texas Texas. ” Cruz said in his final statement.
Throughout, Mr. Cruz tried, without evidence, to paint Mr. Allred as an ally of Islamic terrorism, an opponent of the Texas oil and gas industry, and a supporter of illegal immigration and forced child sterilization.
And he emphasized his bipartisan goodwill, particularly on the highway bill with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-Ga.).
In response, Allred called Cruz a “threat to democracy.”
“We're all Americans and we're all Texans. We need a leader who will unite us around common values. That's what I've been trying to do for six years. “That's the opposite of what Sen. Cruz has done, no matter what he says tonight,” Allred said in his closing remarks.
In part, this was a dig at Starring Cruise It is Trump's challenge to his decisive loss to Biden in the 2020 election. (In the debate, Mr. Cruz declined to say whether he believed the election was stolen.)
But it was also part of a broader criticism of Allred, subsumed by repeated references to “Cancun”: Ted Cruz, whether you agree with his policies or not, Allred claimed common ground with Cruise on the topic of LNG exports and whether he supports “boys playing girls sports,” he's just a showboater for himself.
“If he doesn't like what's going on in Washington right now, well, guess what? He has a special responsibility for it,” Allred said in closing.
Cruz dances around abortion issue
The Republican Party's weakest issue in Texas is abortion. about 80 percent of voters I think it should be allowed somehowBut in 2021, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a bill banning all abortions after six weeks. This period is one in which most women do not know they are pregnant and ends long before many serious and life-threatening medical conditions appear.
The bill goes into effect in 2022 after President Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices cast key votes overturning federal abortion protections, leaving Texas doctors in a legal no-man's land and facing fraud. If found guilty, he would be subject to a fine of up to $100,000 and life imprisonment. Ask whether the abortion was medically necessary.
Asked about his policy on abortion, Mr. Cruz dodged his answer by focusing on states' rights.
“You wouldn't expect Texas' laws to be the same as California. You wouldn't expect Alabama to be the same as New York,” he said.
Allred said of watching his wife's pregnancy process: I'm with Allie, but Ted Cruz thinks he knows better, so there's nothing I can do. ”
“I'm not a state representative. I'm not the governor,” Cruz declared. “He knows that, but he's trying to fool everyone.”
“Every Texas family watching this needs to understand that when Ted Cruz says he's pro-life, he doesn't mean you're pro-life,” Allred said. he said.
Allred claims rights across borders
The hosts asked Allred to address two main lines of attack against Cruz: the border and medical care for transgender youth.
Regarding the first topic, Mr. Cruz accused Mr. Allred of being part of a Democratic conspiracy to open the borders, import millions of illegal immigrants, and give them citizenship. next election. ”
Second, the congressman is seen as someone who is overly supportive of transgender youth athletes, or as Mr. Cruz put it in a recent ad. “A male student is using the female locker room.''
“Senator Allred was a linebacker in the NFL. It's unfair for a man to compete against a woman,” Cruz said.
In both cases, Allred portrayed himself as a rational conservative modeled on George W. Bush in the mid-1990s: traditional, Christian, but fundamentally compassionate. .
“I don't support men playing women's sports,” Allred said, quoted in the LGBTQ magazine The Advocate. So-called “anti-trans” When lawmakers announced it last week. But he added, “I think people shouldn't be discriminated against.” Before shifting the focus to abortion, he added, “I think people should not only have the right to choose, but also the right not to die from a preventable disease.” I carefully constructed an image of a woman exercising.
“What he wants you to think about is the kids in the bathroom, not the women in the hospital,” Allred said.
That approach was also evident in his stance at the border. When the moderator pressed the Democratic Party about the reason, I was against it before Allred said he supported President Trump's border wall, but not President Biden's recent border wall expansion plan, warning against taking “something from seven years ago out of context.” did.
In contrast to his first-term statements about a “racist” wall, Allred on Tuesday accused Cruz of not being tough enough on immigration, especially in February's restrictive Senate border deal. He repeatedly criticized him for voting against the .
“Sen. Mr. Cruz treats border communities like he's going on some kind of safari. He comes down, puts on outdoor clothes, and tries to look tough. ”And Mr. Cruz “will not be able to help me in any way when I return to Washington,” Mr. Allred said.
In another throwback to the Bush era, Allred also promised to fix “our broken legal immigration system.”
Trump is an asset, Harris is a liability.
While Mr. Cruz touted his ties to Mr. Trump throughout the debate, Mr. Allred kept his party's top leaders at arm's length and refused to attack the former president, who has been used as a bogeyman by Democrats elsewhere.
This largely reflects Allred's narrow path to victory in a state that is still very red. According to DDHQ averages, the presidential race in Texas is close, while Vice President Harris is trailing President Trump by 5.5 percentage points in the Lone Star State.
That's twice the distance between Mr. Allred and Mr. Cruz now, and means that Mr. Allred would need to persuade hundreds of thousands of Trump voters to remove Mr. Cruz to win. He has supported Ms. Harris and even encouraged her in a speech at the Democratic National Convention this summer, but he has been careful to distance himself from Ms. Cruz as Mr. Cruz harshly criticizes the comparison.
Mr. Cruz, on the other hand, has far less need to be conciliatory to Harris supporters. “Understand that,” he said. “Kamala Harris is Colin Allred. Their records are the same,” he said, adding that both “act on the same radical agenda.”
“When Donald Trump was president, I worked with him on border security, and we had incredible success,” Cruz said at one point. He was probably featured more than any other senator during the debate.
“When President Trump was president, I urged him to move the embassy to Jerusalem, which he did, and… when President Trump was president, I urged him to move the embassy to Jerusalem. He urged him to leave, which he did,” Cruz said.
President Trump stressed on Tuesday ahead of the debate that he has his “complete and complete support” for Cruz.
