Opinion: The Cruz-Allred Senate Debate Laid Out the Choice

Going into Tuesday night’s debate between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and his opponent Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, you’d be pardoned if you were anticipating a complete rout for Allred.

After all, Houston’s own Cruz, who has served as the Texas junior senator since his 2012 election, has long been acclaimed for his debating prowess. Allred wasn’t bringing such bona fides to the stage.

But Allred, the Dallas-born, former-Baylor football captain, former-NFL player and current congressman representing the 23rd District, had polls in his back pocket.

After months of being viewed – and dismissed – as a longshot candidate by both the Republicans and his own party, Allred has surged in the polls in recent weeks. The polling data now shows the two contenders in a much closer race than expected. (A University of Houston poll published Tuesday before the debate showed Cruz leading 50 percent to Allred’s 46 percent, but a week-old internal GOP super PAC poll, obtained by Politico, only has Cruz garnering 48 percent to Allred’s 47 percent of the vote. In other words, the odds still favor Cruz but his victory is far from a lock.)

Thus, both candidates entered the debate, deftly moderated by Jason Whiteley, political reporter for WFAA, and Gromer Jeffers, political reporter for the Dallas Morning News, with something to prove.

Could Allred hold his own against Cruz and show voters that his rep as a true moderate isn’t just for show?
Could Cruz — reputed to be one of the most unpopular members of Congress and described by GOP former-U.S. House Speaker John Boehner as “Lucifer in the flesh” —come across as, well, likeable?

In his opening statement, Allred, who won the coin toss and opted to go first, hit Cruz in one of the senator’s softest spots by promising right off the bat that, if elected to the U.S. Senate he’ll put Texas and Texans first. Allred pledged, in a moment that saw Cruz smiling hard, that he won’t head off to Cancun the way Cruz did in the middle of 2021’s historic winter freeze.

For his part, Cruz took a measured stance in his introduction, noting he is the son of a Cuban immigrant father, complementing Allred having been raised by a single mother, and explaining that his plan of attack was to return repeatedly to Allred’s record.

Over the course of the next hour, which galloped by as the debaters picked up speed, Cruz and Allred talked over all of the big-ticket issues, from abortion to the economy to the border, their respective approaches to the ongoing conflicts in Israel and Ukraine, the events of January 6, IVF regulations, transgender rights and affordable housing.

On abortion, the issue that stands to shape how many of our elections play out on November 5, Cruz kept calm. With his signature unflappable smoothness, Cruz repeatedly avoided laying out whether he supports exemptions for rape or incest. Instead, he contended that Allred’s abortion stance—which Allred described as “support of protections and restrictions as laid out by Roe [v. Wade]”—represented a disregard for Texas state laws.

When pressed to answer the question, Cruz again made a well-oiled swerve toward Allred, prompting a blistering response from Allred.

“It’s not pro-life to deny women care so long they can’t have children anymore. It’s not pro-life to force a victim of rape to carry their rapist’s baby. It’s not pro-life that our maternal mortality rate has skyrocketed up to 56 percent,” Allred interjected in a moderator-approved rebuttal. “To every Texas woman at home and for every Texas family watching this, understand that when Ted Cruz says he’s pro-life, he doesn’t mean yours.”

Pressed a third time to answer the question, Cruz still wasn’t having it—or answering.

Cruz attempted to hammer Allred on the economy. “When it comes to inflation, inflation is caused by the policies of Kamala Harris and Congressman Allred,” Cruz stated. “Kamala Harris and Congressman Allred came in and they went on a spending binge.” (It should be noted that the Trump administration ran up the national debt by $8.4 trillion versus the Biden administration’s $4.3 trillion.)

Allred countered that Cruz, for all of his concern for Texas senior citizens and people on a budget, actually voted against the popular measure that lowered the cost of insulin.

“He talks tough but he never shows up,” Allred interjected in a moderator-sanctioned rebuttal. “We have a phrase for this, ‘all hat and no cattle,’ and that’s what Sen. Cruz is. Six more years of this? Come on.”

On transgender rights, Allred said he wants to protect children, while Cruz insisted Allred wants “boys to play against girls.”

On the question of whether January 6 rioters should be pardoned, as former-President Donald Trump has said he intends to do, Cruz stated that he believes “all people who commit a crime should be penalized,” noting that Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has endorsed him.

In response, Allred claimed that he was trying to block the door against rioters attempting to gain entrance to the House Floor while Cruz was “hiding in a supply closet.”

Allred sailed into Cruz on his vote opposing the bundled foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel, noting that even Sen. John Cornyn, the senior Texas senator, voted in favor of providing aid while Cruz voted against it.

“When I was elected 12 years ago, I resolved then to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate and I’ve worked every day to do that, to stand up and fight to support Israel,” Cruz responded. He also claimed that Allred “has consistently lined up against Israel” by pointing to his support of sending U.S. aid to Gaza and the Biden administration’s 2023 sanctions waiver that allowed Iran to access $10 billion.

Now more at ease, Allred dismissed Cruz’s claims that Allred is against what Cruz described as holding Hamas responsible for using children as human shields and defended his support of sending aid to Gaza civilians. “This has to be our responsibility, this has to be Israeli responsibility,” Allred said.

The rest of the debate played out along these same lines with Cruz and Allred dissecting their respective views on a series of issues, including the border (both accused each other of being weak on border and immigration policy) and IVF (both are in favor of protecting IVF access but Allred noted how Cruz’s pro-life stance has imperiled the practice, while Cruz brought up his failed IVF protection bill).

A question on what to do about high food prices went mostly unanswered as Cruz’s response zigged into a claim that the high prices are due to an unfriendly policy toward Texas oil and gas. Cruz tried to paint Allred as against it, while Allred pointed toward his public call on the Biden administration to end its pause on permitting new liquified natural gas export projects. They debated about affordable housing policies and Cruz’s decision to vote against the $35 billion federal infrastructure bill in 2021. Allred touted his award for being one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, while Cruz referred to bipartisan bills he has cosponsored.

And then, just like that, they were out of time.

“We’re all Americans and we’re all Texans. We need a leader who will bring us together around our shared values,” Allred said. “If you don’t like how things are in Washington right now, [Cruz] is singularly responsible for it.”

“The stakes of this election are the highest of my lifetime,” Cruz said, going on to claim that if Allred is elected, he’ll vote to “allow every illegal alien in America” and “turn Texas blue in an instant … I will fight to keep Texas Texas,” Cruz concluded.

Coming away from this debate, a few things are clear. Yes, Cruz remains a remarkably skilled debater. He can talk his way around anything. But the fact of the matter is that his actions may finally be speaking as loudly as Cruz himself, because he was unable to talk his way around a number of decisions he’s made in the Senate.

He also remains unable to outtalk the fact that he went to Cancun while Texans, plus his own dog, were left in freezing conditions back in 2021.

Allred isn’t as fluid on a debate stage. He didn’t display Beto O’Rourke’s spiky charisma and was clearly nervous at the top of the hour-long debate. Over the course of the debate, he warmed up and managed to score a series of hits on his opponent, but Cruz had him on skill.

The thing is, to beat Cruz last night, Allred didn’t have to defeat him. He just had to let Cruz himself remind Texans who the senator is and offer them a reasonable choice.

And that’s exactly what Allred did.