Cruz and Allred are taking different paths to victory in the US Senate elections

As in 2018, the race to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate will be tight and costly.

DRIPPPING SPRINGS — Facing a friendly late-night crowd at a scenic shooting range site in the Texas Hill Country exactly one week before Election Day, incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz felt compelled to remind his supporters that they weren’t in California.

Not that anyone is confused about where they are. Roads leading to a private club called Pig heaven south of Dripping Springs, about 30 miles west of Austin, were lined with large “Make America Great Again” signs for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, many surrounded by Texas flags.

Cruz said his Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s Senate race could be confused about which state he would represent if he fails.

“Colin Allred, in his first four years in the House, voted with (former Speaker) Nancy Pelosi 100 percent of the time, on every vote,” said Cruz, who is seeking a third six-year term in the Senate. “It was literally as if he walked in, pulled out his ballot card, handed it to Nancy and said, ‘Here, Nancy, whatever San Francisco wants, Texas wants.’

“But this isn’t California.”

Allred vs. Cruz: Big Money and Tough Voting

As in 2018, Cruz finds himself in a tight and almost prohibitively expensive race for re-election. And as he and Allred spend the final stretch of the campaign crisscrossing the vast expanse of Texas, the candidates are making their closing arguments for two very different versions of the Lone Star State.

Six years ago, Cruz lost the state’s five largest counties — four of them by double-digit margins — and nearly all of the historically Democratic-friendly counties along the Rio Grande. His opponent in that 2018 race, then-U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso, also made significant gains in the suburbs that played a key role in the Republican takeover of Texas in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Cruz’s 2.6 percentage point victory over O’Rourke in 2018 was a result of his enormous strength in open seats like Dripping Springs, which were part of 53 stops he and several of his Republican allies made at the luxury camper emblazoned with his “Keep Texas” message. “Texas,” the campaign slogan, which features an outdoor terrace in the back.

Both candidates have raised a total of $166 million, with Allred raising slightly more than Cruz, according to the latest campaign finance reports. Late campaign polls show a tight race. Emerson College Poll Last week, Cruz showed a slight lead with 48% to Allred’s 47%. University of Houston Poll October 15 shows Cruz with a 4-point lead.

Allred, a former NFL linebacker turned lawyer who represented the Dallas district he won from an entrenched Republican in 2018, is closing the race in urban Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.

Even as Cruz sought to link Allred to Pelosi and other left-leaning national Democrats, the challenger took pains to position himself as a pragmatic moderate willing to reach across party divides.

Yet Allred kept his distance when Doug Emhoff, the husband of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, made a two-day fundraising foray into Texas in September, and then when liberal lawmakers Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, and Rep. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York rallied the youth vote at Texas State University at San Marcos.

But Allred joined Harris last week in Houston. when the vice president led a rally that drew about 30,000 people and included progressive celebrities such as Willie Nelson, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Jessica Alba.

The appearance provided the perfect opportunity for Allred to highlight one of the central themes of his campaign — restoring abortion rights after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. And he took the opportunity to remind voters that Cruz left Texas for the Mexican resort of Cancun while the state was in the grip of a days-long, deadly winter storm in February 2021.

“To all the Texas families looking for a senator who cares about them, I will never leave you when you need me most,” Allred said.

US Senate Race in Texas: Assessing Harris and Trump Factors

Allred’s decision to join Harris’ rally also provided an opportunity for Cruz to show his own support for Trump, with whom he appeared at a campaign event in Austin just hours before the vice president took over the state in Houston.

And at his event in Dripping Springs, the incumbent president made sure his supporters understood the contrast.

“I worked hand in hand with President Trump, and we got the biggest tax cut in a generation,” Cruz told the crowd, reminding them that early voting ends Friday and Election Day is Tuesday. “And that led to the lowest unemployment in 50 years.”

According to the research platform StatisticsUS unemployment hit a low of 3.68% under Trump in pre-pandemic 2019. Cruz, however, did not mention that the unemployment rate fell several points lower to 3.63% under Democratic President Joe Biden after the economy recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.

Abortion versus immigration and other issues

While Allred has leaned toward abortion rights in recent days, Cruz has leaned heavily on immigration and border security, reminding voters that illegal immigration has soared to 11 million unauthorized crossings since the Biden administration rolled back many of Trump’s crackdowns. in 2022 once Biden takes office.

“I will tell you that there is no greater threat to our security right now than the chaos on our southern border,” Cruz said. “I spend a lot of time on our southern border. If you haven’t been there lately, I promise you, no matter how bad you think it is, it’s even worse.”

Allred accused Cruz of not supporting a border bill previously drafted by a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Cruz accused Allred of helping kill a border law pushed by congressional Republicans.

In television ads and campaign appearances, Cruz has used the issue of how transgender athletes can compete in sports to propose Allred will allow men to compete with women and use the same locker rooms. Allred refused comparisoncalling it misleading and petty.

“Everything is bigger in Texas, but Ted Cruz is too small for Texas,” Allred said at a rally in Harris.

In Dripping Springs, Cruz said Allred was too liberal for Texas.

“If there were a vacancy on the San Francisco City Council, Colin Allred would be a formidable candidate,” Cruz said.