The two candidates for the U.S. Senate, incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, faced each other for the first time in Thursday’s only debate statewide.
What stood out in this debate was two dynamic candidates confronting each other in person for the first time. They had good back-and-forths about many issues, including one on border security.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan border security bill failed to pass the U.S. Senate. Sen. Cruz voted against it because he believed it didn’t go far enough.
“We had a bill. This is a pattern. He talks tough. But he never shows up. We have a phrase for this in Texas. All hat and no cattle. That’s what Senator Cruz is. Six more years of this come on. He’s had twelve years to do this. Give someone else new a chance," said Rep. Allred.
“When the lights went out in the energy capital of the world, he went to Cancún. On Jan. 6, when a mob was storming the Capitol, he was hiding a supply closet. And when the toughest border security bill in a generation came up in the United States Senate, he took it down,” Allred said, repeatedly mentioning Cruz’s trip to Mexico during a 2021 winter storm in Texas. “We don’t have to have a senator like this.”
Cruz appeared bemused by Allred’s zingers.
“Congressman Allred has memorized his lines well,” he said with a grin, saying there’s “difference between words and actions.” Cruz said Allred’s “words sound good” but don’t match his voting record.
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“Congressman Allred was an NFL linebacker. It is not fair for a man to compete against women,” Cruz said.
“I don’t support boys playing girls’ sports,” Allred replied, calling it “laughable” for Cruz to present himself as “the protector of women and girls” when he “thinks it’s perfectly reasonable that if a girl is raped by a relative of hers, a victim of incest, that she should be forced to carry that child to term and give birth to it.”
Cruz said the stakes in the election are the highest in his lifetime and that Allred and presidential candidate Kamala Harris are running on the same radical agenda. He said Allred has pledged to be the 50th vote to end the filibuster, the requirement that 60 votes were needed to pass legislation in the Senate and that Democrats would then strike down every Republican voter integrity law in the country. He said Democrats would then add Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., as states to give them four new Democratic senators. He said they’d then grant voting rights to every illegal immigrant in the country, immediately turning Texas blue and bringing about a change in state leadership. He said they’d also pack the U.S. Supreme Court, jeopardizing fundamental rights. Cruz said Allred wants to destroy Texas and that he will fight to keep Texas, Texas.
