Incumbent Ted Cruz (R), Colin Allred (D), Ted Brown (L), and Tracy Andrus (D) are running in the U.S. Senate race in Texas on November 5, 2024.
In 2018, Cruz defeated Beto O’Rourke (D) by 50.9% to 48.3%. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee identified Texas and Florida’s Senate elections as their top two pickup opportunities in 2024. Inside Election’s Nathan Gonzalez said, “Texas is the only Republican seat that we have not graded as solid Republican. Right now, we think Democrats have a better chance in Texas than they do in Florida, but both are still difficult races.”
Cruz called himself the biggest target from Democrats behind Donald Trump (R) and said, “Texas is a battlefield. It’s easy to be complacent. One of the real mistakes people make in politics is they have a recency bias. They say well, whatever things have been recently, that’s what it’s going to be forever.”
Cruz was first elected to the Senate in 2012 and served as the Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008. Before holding elected office, he was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, associate deputy attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, and director of the Office of Policy Planning for the Federal Trade Commission.
Allred was elected to the U.S. House in 2018. Before holding public office, he played football for the Tennessee Titans, was a civil rights lawyer, and worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama administration.
Both candidates are campaigning on immigration. The Texas Tribune’s Jasper Sherer wrote, “Allred is running campaign ads that tout headlines about him breaking with his party to condemn Biden, while Cruz laced into the president’s policies in a lively speech at the Republican National Convention Tuesday, blaming Biden for several recent high-profile murders allegedly committed by immigrants who entered the country illegally.”
“The border-centric campaigns are a nod to public opinion polls that have repeatedly shown Texas voters ranking immigration and the border as their most pressing issues,” said Sherer.
In an email to the Tribune, Cruz pointed to his record: “Over the past decade I’ve repeatedly authored and introduced strong border legislation, and Democrats like Allred have repeatedly refused to agree to anything that would actually secure the border.”
“One of my biggest frustrations with Sen. Cruz is that he’s had 12 years to try and enact any kind of reform — whether it’s comprehensive or even just targeted — to try and help us do something about what’s been happening at the border. And he has, every single time, refused,” said Allred.
Based on second-quarter reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Cruz raised $59.2 million and spent $46.6 million and Allred raised $38.4 million and spent $28.0 million. According to reports filed in 2018, Cruz raised $23.7 million and spent $15.2 million, and O’Rourke raised $23.8 million and spent $10.1 million as of the same point in that election cycle.
The outcome of this race will affect the partisan balance of the U.S. Senate in 2025. Thirty-four of 100 seats are up for election, including one special election. Of the seats up for election in 2024, Democrats hold 19, Republicans hold 11, and independents hold four. As of May 2024, eight members of the U.S. Senate had announced they were not running for re-election.
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