By Emma Weidmann | Editor-in-Chief
The Tuesday night debate between Sen. Ted Cruz and congressman Colin Allred was the first and only between the two, but it touched on what the moderators named the two biggest issues for Texans this election: abortion and immigration.
“I agree with the United States Supreme Court that under our constitution the way we resolve questions like [abortion], questions on which we have real and genuine disagreements, is at the ballot box, is voting,” Cruz said on stage in the WFAA studio in Dallas.
On the topic of abortion, many Texans fall in different camps. In 2023, The Pew Research Center reported that in states where abortion is prohibited, 43% of adults say it should be easier to obtain, and 62% of Americans think it should be legal in all or most cases.
Cruz and Allred are at odds on the topic, as Allred, a Baylor alumnus, has strongly opposed the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. On the other hand, Cruz has taken a much more anti-abortion stance, co-authoring an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in 2021, urging the justices to overrule Roe and Casey v. Planned Parenthood. In the debate, he sidestepped questions about whether or not he supports exceptions for rape or incest with a simple, “Why do you keep asking?”
After a short verbal scuffle on the debate stage, the moderators moved the candidates to an equally divisive topic: immigration. Cruz has long been a proponent of former President Trump’s border wall, while Allred downplayed the issue as a “right-wing echo chamber” in 2022. However, Allred has run a campaign largely focused on stricter border protections while Cruz voted against a bipartisan border bill that sought to secure an emergency supplemental allowance of billions of dollars for border security and combating fentanyl trafficking.
Dr. Felipe Hinojosa, endowed chair in Latin America and professor of history at Baylor, said candidates have figured out how to use the border for “bumper stickers” and campaign energy. However, Hinojosa said politicians’ rhetoric has become dehumanizing and misses the heart of the issue.
“The language that they’re using… which has just sort of painted all immigrants that are coming here as a threat to the nation… those sort of sound bites are, I think, what Trump and others have realized work in an election cycle,” Hinojosa said.
Though he takes issue with Republicans’ language when dealing with immigration, Hinojosa also took aim at Allred’s approach.
“I think the Democratic Party is not innocent in any of this,” Hinojosa said. “They have responded to polling data they’re seeing and how Americans seem to see this immigration issue as a major threat without speaking into the economic benefit, without speaking into the fact that immigrants have always been a plus in American society, without speaking into the fact that study after study has shown that wages do not decrease with an increase in immigrants.”
Both issues are on the ballot on Election Day, as Cruz and Allred promise to deliver very different results in the Senate throughout the six-year term.
At his campaign stop in Waco in August, Cruz promised to “Keep Texas Texas.” Meanwhile, on the debate stage Tuesday night, Allred told Texans “we don’t have to be embarrased by our senator. We can get a new one.”
The Texas Tribune reports that last month, Allred pulled ahead in a statewide poll for the first time, and the latest numbers from pollster 538 have Cruz leading by only four points.
On Nov. 5, only one can prevail, but there’s no clear prediction now of who that will be as the race remains nail-bitingly close.
