In Colin Allred, Ted Cruz once again facing a well-funded Democratic challenger in reelection fight

On a sunny October afternoon, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz posed for photos with supporters next to his campaign bus in downtown Waxahachie – a historic square complete with quaint shops and a storied, almost mythical-looking courthouse.

The city is the seat of conservative Ellis County, directly south of Dallas and named after one of the leaders who helped Texas declare its independence from Mexico in 1836. Cruz had just delivered a fiery speech in an old playhouse across the street called the Texas Theater, where he rallied the crowd with red-meat rhetoric and jokes appealing to the state’s unique sense of pride.

“We were founded by a bunch of wildcatters,” he said onstage in jeans and boots. “A bunch of guys with fourth-grade educations who began drilling holes in the ground and one after the other became the richest men on Earth. That’s Texas! Texas is: Give me an open field and a horse and a gun, and I can conquer the world.”

Ranked one of the most conservative senators, Cruz’s bid for a third term should be a smooth ride in a place that has consistently elected Republicans in statewide contests for the past 30 years. But for the second election in a row, Cruz finds himself fighting to keep his seat against a well-funded Democrat.

Rep. Colin Allred is a former NFL linebacker and civil rights lawyer who ousted a Republican for a US House seat six years ago. He’s now challenging Cruz and painting the incumbent senator as an unlikeable politician who cares more about podcasting than about legislating.

Recent polls suggest a tightening race, one reminiscent of when Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to Cruz in 2018 by less than 3 percentage points in a campaign that caught the country’s attention. National Democratic groups are again investing heavily in TV ads, stirring up an all-too-familiar hope they can pull off a massive upset, though many remain skeptical.

Both men describe themselves as serious legislators who can work across the aisle, while at the same time, blast each other as radical candidates out of touch with Texas voters. The ad wars on TV further highlight a stark contrast between two emerging yet competing ideas of the Texas electorate – a longtime conservative force or an evolving landscape with increasingly Democratic strongholds.

The latter of which is a reality casting a shadow on Cruz’s campaign – most notably when he urges voters on his 53-city tour to vote for Republicans up and down the ticket.

“This race comes down to one very simple thing,” he says in his stump speech, “keeping Texas Texas.”

The issues: Economy, the border and transgender policies

In the final weeks before the election, both candidates are blitzing across the state to drill home their closing message. They’re also set to duel in a televised debate Tuesday, hosted by CNN affiliate WFAA.

That’s on top of the massive amount of money spent on ads in the state’s abundant and expensive media markets. The two campaigns and their allied groups have spent nearly $129 million, including future ad buys through Election Day, according to data from AdImpact, making it one of the eight most expensive Senate races this cycle. Allred and groups supporting him have spent nearly two-thirds of that total, while Cruz and his supporters have spent the other third.

Cruz has largely aimed his attacks on Allred regarding three issues: the economy, the US southern border and transgender policies. He’s released multiple TV ads pointing to Allred’s vote against a GOP-led House bill last year that would have banned transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools. The bill, which passed on a party-line vote, was not taken up by the Senate.

On the campaign trail, Cruz makes the topic a prominent part of his stump speech. “We are living in a world where one of the two major parties right now cannot figure out what is a woman,” he said. “That didn’t use to be a trick question.”

Allred became the first Democrat this election cycle to release an ad responding to the barbs over transgender issues – a key line of attack by Republicans in the presidential race and other congressional races.

“Ted Cruz is lying again, but now he’s lying about our children. I’m a dad. I’m also a Christian,” Allred says in a new ad. “And my faith has taught me that all kids are God’s kids. So let me be clear: I don’t want boys playing girls sports or any of this ridiculous stuff that Ted Cruz is saying.”

CNN has asked Allred’s campaign to clarify his stance more precisely but has not received a response.

Cruz also criticizes Allred for changing his tune on the southern border. While running for Congress in 2018, Allred referred to the border wall as “racist,” and as recently as two years ago said he didn’t see the border as a “top-of-mind” issue for a lot of voters in Texas, though he said he wanted to see comprehensive immigration reform.

He’s now making the border a focal point in his ads, vowing to fix the issue and attacking Cruz for opposing the bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year. Allred also joined with Republicans this year to condemn the “Biden administration’s open-borders policies” in a GOP-led resolution.

On the campaign trail, where the border is a winning issue for Republicans, Cruz has repeatedly called out Allred for standing in front of the same border wall that the representative criticized years ago in one of his TV ads and has questioned Allred’s seriousness about the border.

In an interview with CNN, Allred defended his position, acknowledging that he and his party took “too long to be responsive to what was a rising tide of migration.”

“But we can also say the response can’t be ‘Let’s be cruel to people and think that’s gonna help.’ That’s not actual border security,” he said.

Meanwhile, Allred is hitting Cruz hard over abortion, arguing the senator is “responsible” for the overturning of Roe v. Wade by helping put judges and justices in federal courts, leading to the landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2022.

“With Ted Cruz, we get more government and less freedom, and Texas women pay the price,” the narrator says in one of Allred’s ads.

While Cruz has celebrated the Supreme Court ruling as a major victory, he’s remained quiet recently about his stance on Texas’ abortion laws, which don’t include exceptions for rape or incest. Asked by CNN why he didn’t mention abortion in his stump speech after a rally in Allen, Cruz argued it’s not a top concern for Texas voters and changed the subject to jobs and the border. In another gaggle with reporters the following day, he said it was an issue for state leaders to decide.

Both candidates tout their bipartisanship, but Allred is leaning heavily into his support from high-profile Republicans such as former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who leads a group called “Republicans for Allred.”

Allred brings up their endorsements often, mentioning their names more frequently than Vice President Kamala Harris’. Asked by CNN about that strategy, Allred said he doesn’t think Texas voters view his race and the presidential race in the same light.

“I do think that there are Texans out there who are actual conservatives and who believe in the rule of law, who believe in the Constitution, who believe we shouldn’t try and overturn elections, who think that, you know, they don’t want to be embarrassed anymore by their senator,” he said.

Cruz finds Cheney’s support laughable. “I’ve known Liz Cheney a long time, and she’s completely lost her mind,” he told CNN when asked about her endorsement.

Allred’s effort to cement his brand as a moderate is one key difference from O’Rourke’s campaign in 2018. And while O’Rourke crisscrossed the state with large, energetic rallies, Allred has spent much of the race holding smaller, more intimate events, while spending big – and early – on TV ads to boost his name recognition. In these final weeks, Allred is starting to do bigger events, urging people to get out the vote.

O’Rourke also refrained from going negative against Cruz, but Allred isn’t holding back punches. Several of his ads show video of Cruz at the airport on his infamous trip to Cancun during the deadly 2021 Texas freeze that left the state in a standstill for days. Cruz called the trip a mistake when he returned, but he has since joked about it.

At a campaign event last week with the “Funky East Dallas Democrats,” Allred railed against Cruz’s intentions as a serious legislator, poking fun at his thrice-weekly podcast, blaming him in part for the January 6, 2021, insurrection, and knocking him on abortion.

But in his closing line, Allred asked the crowd to remember Cruz’s Cancun suitcase as they watch the results come in on Election Day.

“Imagine Cruz taking that same little roller bag and walking right out of the Capitol,” he said.

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.