It’s difficult to get more than 50% of the vote in a race with nine candidates.
Still, Colin Allred has a chance to win the Democratic U.S. Senate primary without a runoff and face Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz in the general election.
Allred, a U.S. representative from Dallas, has that possibility because he entered the race early, raised $18.3 million and projected an air of inevitability with political operatives and pundits in Washington and Texas.
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Early voting for the March 5 primaries begins Tuesday, and for the last few weeks Allred has been alone on the Texas airwaves. He’s the only candidate reaching large swaths of voters in Dallas, Houston, Austin and the Rio Grande Valley, where he’s running the bulk of his TV spots. He has waged a stout digital campaign and has an army of grassroots volunteers across the state.
In a new poll from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, 52% of respondents chose Allred. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio was second with 14%, while 18% were undecided. No other candidate had more than 5% support.
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project, said Texans who were undecided are breaking toward Allred.
Other analysts agree.
“Right now it’s very likely that Allred will win outright on March 5,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist and senior research fellow at the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs.
Jones co-authored a survey conducted Jan. 11-24 that found Allred was the choice of 40% of likely voters in the Democratic primary. Gutierrez of San Antonio finished second with 12%, and none of the other candidates received more than 4% support. The poll found 38% of voters were undecided.
“Any way that you project it, undecideds would put him easily over 50%,” Jones said of Allred.
From left: U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio and state Rep. Carl Sherman of DeSoto. The three are among the Democrats seeking to face U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in November.(Campaign courtesy photo / Campaign courtesy photos)
When no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two finishers advance to a runoff. Jones said a runoff could occur if other candidates, including state Rep. Carl Sherman of DeSoto, get a significant share of the vote.
“That’s not happening right now,” he said.
Though Allred’s fundraising has always dominated the Democratic race, Gutierrez was considered to be a competitive opponent. His advocacy on behalf of the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers died, put his face in front of voters.
A series of special legislative sessions last year may have hampered his ability to raise money and storm out of the starting block.
Other candidates also were slow out the gate.
Gutierrez acknowledges that Allred has a money advantage but rejects the notion that the race is over. He has been traveling across Texas on a major get-out-the vote swing.
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“We’re powered by people here. We’re working hard. We’re traveling the state where we’re going up on digital media as well,” Gutierrez said. “I keep all the punditry and all the strategy to my staff and I just get out there to work and talk to people about their problems.”
Gutierrez is receiving inspiration from Crandall school teacher Victor Morales, who in 1996 beat U.S. Reps. John Bryant of Dallas and Jim Chapman of Sulphur Springs and Houston lawyer John Odam to win the Democratic nomination for Senate. Morales lost the general election to Republican Phil Gramm.
Lacking campaign cash, Morales drove a white pickup across Texas to deliver his message. His surname also helped him attract Latino voters.
“He didn’t have two nickels to rub together,” Gutierrez said of Morales.
When I pointed out that Morales had the white pickup, Gutierrez was undaunted.
“I have a white pickup,” he said.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)(Jose Luis Magana / ASSOCIATED PRESS)
With his large lead, Allred is using the primary to contrast himself with Cruz on the abortion issue, which Democrats hope will motivate general election voters.
In a television ad called “Freedom,” Allred says if elected senator he would fight to “protect women’s access to abortion.”
“Our state’s extreme abortion ban lets politicians like Ted Cruz decide what care women get, not their doctors,” Allred says in the ad. “My wife and I have been blessed with two beautiful baby boys. It’s outrageous that she could have been denied treatment in an emergency.”
Allred doesn’t mention his Democratic rivals in campaign commercials. He has his eyes on Cruz.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., shakes hand with Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, right, after a roundtable discussion about health care industry challenges and investments from the COVID-19 aid package passed by the Congress last year, Monday, March 21, 2022 at Dallas County Health and Human Services in Dallas. (Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)