By Emma Weidmann | Editor-in-Chief
Sen. Ted Cruz (R) will keep his seat in the Senate after a hard-fought race against Democratic challenger Congressman Colin Allred.
“The results tonight, this decisive victory, should shake the Democrat establishment to its core,” Cruz told supporters during his victory speech in Houston.
Cruz took Texas by nine points, though Allred and the Democrats out-fundraised him in the third quarter by $9 million, according to The Texas Tribune. Allred, a Baylor alumnus, broke fundraising records in his effort to beat the incumbent senator. His ads, which ran on several television stations across the state, attempted to paint him as a moderate Democrat — still tough on the border, yet less extreme than Cruz. Last month, in their only debate, Allred presented himself as staunchly anti-Trump.
“He’s never there for us when we need him,” Allred said of Cruz. “When the lights went out in the energy capital of the world, he went to Cancún. When a mob was storming the Capitol, he was hiding in a supply closet. And when the toughest border security bill in a generation came up in the United States Senate, he took it down.”
But money and debate chops weren’t enough to unseat Cruz. Bradford Holland, the immediate past chair of the McLennan County Republican Party, said the win means that Texans held fast against “outside-of-Texas money” and have shown the state to be “solidly red.”
“We didn’t let outside influences sway the race,” Holland said. “Texas, I think, is behind Cruz and what he stands for.”
When Cruz visited Waco in August, he spoke at length about the U.S.-Mexico border and lampooned Allred’s voting record. In his third term as a senator, he has promised to “Keep Texas Texas” and continue with his pro-life, tough on immigration legislation agendas.
His speech was full of high-stakes scenarios and grave tales from Capitol Hill. In one particularly bleak story, Cruz recounted questioning Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on the border. According to Cruz, the secretary was unable to explain the meaning behind a photo of multicolored wristbands he showed during an oversight meeting.
“Just about every illegal alien that comes into this country is wearing one of those colored wristbands,” Cruz said. “The colors correspond to how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels. When you stand on the banks of the Rio Grande River, as I have many times, you will see hundreds or even thousands of those wristbands laying in the grass. Nobody crosses into this country for free.”
A Reuters report explains the wristbands differently, saying migrants and smugglers both say that the bracelets are, indeed, used by smuggling organizations, but act as receipts, not money owed.
Cruz has held the seat since 2013 and won’t be up for reelection until 2030. Holland said the senate has “natural term limitations” in that the people can always decide to vote their representatives out.
“I don’t like to say anybody [should] spend their whole life in the senate, but on the other hand, we have term limits,” Holland said. “Everybody can be voted out, every six years in the Senate and every two years in the House … I like to see some turnover too, but I think we have natural term limitations.”
Cruz doesn’t have much of a reason to worry about that for now. In his victory speech Tuesday night, he offered a tongue-in-cheek word of thanks to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for indirectly pouring millions of dollars into Texas in an attempt to flip his seat.
“I want to say, ‘Thank you, Chuck,'” Cruz said. “And I hope we win a few more Senate seats tonight because you wasted so much money in Texas.”
Waco junior JW LaStrape, vice president of College Democrats at Baylor, said it seems unlikely for the state to go blue in the foreseeable future, though hopes were up for an Allred win this year.
“Any state has the potential, but Texas typically has been saying that for the past 20 years now, and I highly doubt it,” LaStrape said. “You have states like Florida with similar demographics; they’re heavily conservative. So I think Texas is probably going to stay [red] for a bit. Maybe you see some narrowing of the margins in the next 10 to 20 years, but in the near future? No way.”
In his concession speech, Allred said he had called Cruz to congratulate him on his win, the Associated Press reports.
“It shouldn’t be remarkable to have to admit defeat,” Allred said. “You can’t just be a patriot when your side wins. Tonight we didn’t win, but we will continue to be patriots.”
The Texas Tribune contributed to this report.
