5 takeaways from the Texas Senate debate

Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and former Rep. Collin Allred (D) squared off Tuesday in their only debate before Election Day, sparring over the border and abortion amid signs of a surprisingly competitive race that could help to decide on control of the Senate.

Allred, a three-term congressman and former NFL player, has sparked momentum in the red state, giving Democrats a glimmer of hope for a rebound as they prepare for the possible loss of vulnerable incumbents elsewhere.

Cruz, who is seeking his third term in the upper house with the support of former President Trump, is still the favorite to win. However, according to an average of Texas polls from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, he is ahead by just 2.8 points.

The debate showdown comes shortly after the Cook Political Report threw the Senate contest into disarray and Democrats became increasingly optimistic about the race.

The debate is getting heated

Sparks continued to fly throughout the hour-long debate as rivals poked at each other's records and argued over important issues such as abortion.

During Cruz's trip to Cancun in 2021, when Texas experienced power outages and frigid temperatures, Allred swung several times, an incongruous trip that slowed his reelection and reinforced Allred's larger message that he is unreliable. Cruz repeatedly directed viewers to a website where he criticized his opponent's “all-radical record.”

At one point during a discussion about the southern border, Allred used the time to direct a question to Cruz, questioning the incumbent about why he did not support a border security bill earlier this year.

“That’s a great question,” Cruz said, before asking Allred to take some time so he could answer it. (Allred declined.) When it was his turn to take the microphone, Cruz accused Allred of “memorizing his lines.” He later said the congressman “snapped at me” after a particularly tense exchange about Cruz's “hiding in a storage closet” during the Jan. 6 riots, which Allred said the senator helped provoke.

“Far left,” Cruz said. “You’re so angry right now. There’s so much hate.”

The candidates portray each other as extreme

With up to 11 percent of voters still undecided, according to a poll last week, both candidates sought to emphasize the center by portraying themselves as sensible men with bipartisan instincts and their opponent as a dangerous radical.

“Congressman Allred wants to destroy what we have in Texas because he shares the values ​​of Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris – and I will fight to keep Texas Texas,” Cruz said in his closing statement.

Cruz tried throughout, without evidence, to portray Allred as an ally of Islamic terror, an opponent of the Texas oil and gas industry, and a supporter of illegal immigration and the forced sterilization of children.

And he emphasized his own bipartisan allegiance — particularly the highway legislation with Sens. Rafael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.).

Allred, in turn, called Cruz a “threat to democracy.”

“We are all Americans, we are all Texans: we need a leader who will bring us together around our shared values. That's what I tried to do in my six years. This is the exact opposite of what Senator Cruz did – whatever he says tonight,” Allred said in his closing remarks.

In part, this was a dig at Cruz's leading role in Trump's challenge to his decisive election loss to Biden in 2020. (In the debate, Cruz declined to address whether he believed the election was stolen.)

But it was also part of a broader criticism of Allred, also expressed in the repeated “Cancun” references: that Ted Cruz, whether you agree with his policies or not – and Allred had common ground with Cruz on LNG -Exports claimed whether he supports “boys playing girls' sports” – is a showboater who is only out for himself.

“If you don’t like the way things are going in Washington right now, guess what? He bears sole responsibility for this,” Allred concluded.

Cruz dances around the abortion issue

Texas Republicans' weakest issue is abortion. About 80 percent of voters believe this should be allowed in some form, but in 2021 the Republican-dominated state legislature passed a law banning all abortions after six weeks – a time when most women are unaware that you are pregnant, and which ends long before. Many serious or life-threatening illnesses occur.

That bill took effect in 2022 after Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices cast the deciding votes to strip federal abortion protections, plunging Texas doctors into a legal no-man's land where they could face fines of up to $100,000 and life sentences If they had committed an injustice, inquire whether an abortion was medically necessary.

When asked about his abortion policy, Cruz dodged an answer focused on states' rights.

“You wouldn’t expect the laws in Texas to be the same as those in California. “You wouldn’t expect Alabama to be the same as New York,” he said.

Allred spoke about watching his wife become pregnant: “You don't know what they're going to say, but I can't imagine the doctor coming in and saying, 'So there's a problem with the baby – or a problem.' ' with Allie – but I can't do anything because Ted Cruz thinks he knows better.'”

“I don’t work in the state parliament. “I’m not the governor,” Cruz snapped. “He knows this, but he’s trying to deceive everyone.”

“Every Texas family that sees this needs to understand that when Ted Cruz says he’s pro-life, he doesn’t mean yours,” Allred said.

Allred goes straight to the limit, trans rights

Moderators asked Allred to respond to Cruz's two main lines of attack against him: the border and medical care for transgender youth.

On the first topic, Cruz accused Allred of being part of a Democratic conspiracy to open the borders, import millions of undocumented immigrants and give them citizenship — “that would turn Texas blue, and every statewide elected official.” in Texas would be defeated in the next election.”

Second, he tried to paint the congressman as an over-supporter of transgender youth athletes — or as Cruz put it in a recent ad, “boys using girls' locker rooms.”

“Congressman Allred was an NFL linebacker. “It’s not fair for a man to compete against women,” Cruz said.

In both cases, Allred presented himself as something like a sensible conservative along the lines of George W. Bush in the mid-1990s: traditional, Christian, but fundamentally compassionate.

“I don’t support boys playing girls’ sports,” Allred said, a statement that LGBTQ magazine The Advocate called “anti-trans” when the congressman unveiled it last week. But he added that “I think people shouldn't be discriminated against” before turning to abortion – carefully framed by the image of the woman exercising her right not just to choose, but not to contract a preventable disease die.

“He wants you to think about children in toilets, so you don’t think about women in hospitals,” Allred said.

This approach was also reflected in his attitude at the border. When moderators pressed the Democrat on why he previously opposed Trump's border wall but supported President Biden's recent plans to expand it, Allred warned against taking “anything out of context from seven years ago.”

In contrast to his initial comments about the “racist” wall in his first term, Allred repeatedly criticized Cruz on Tuesday for not being tough enough on immigration, particularly for voting against a restrictive Senate border agreement in February.

“Senator. Cruz treats our border communities as if he were going on some kind of safari. He comes down, puts on his outdoor clothes and tries to look tough.” And then, Allred said, “Cruz goes back to Washington and doesn't do anything to help.”

In another throwback to the Bush era, Allred also promised to fix “our broken legal immigration system.”

Trump is an asset, Harris is a liability

Cruz emphasized his ties to Trump throughout the debate, while Allred kept his own party's leading candidates at arm's length and declined to attack the former president, who Democrats have used as a bogeyman elsewhere.

This largely reflects Allred's narrow path to victory in what remains a very red state: While the presidential race has tightened in Texas, Vice President Harris is 5.5 points behind Trump in the Lone Star State, according to the DDHQ average.

That's double the current margin between Allred and Cruz, meaning that in order to win, Allred will have to convince hundreds of thousands of Trump voters to dump Cruz. While he supports Harris and even hyped her in a speech at the Democratic National Convention this summer, he is careful to keep Harris at arm's length as Cruz highlights the comparisons.

Cruz, on the other hand, has much less of a need to be conciliatory toward Harris supporters. “Understand this,” he said. “Kamala Harris is Colin Allred. Their records are the same.” Both, he said, “pursued the same radical agenda.”

“When Donald Trump was president, I worked hand-in-hand with President Trump to secure the border, and we achieved incredible success,” Cruz once said. On another topic, he shed light on his advice to Trump regarding Israel, an issue that may have inflamed the senator more than any other topic raised during the debate.

“When President Trump was president, I asked him to move our embassy to Jerusalem. He did and…. When President Trump was president, I called on him to withdraw from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. He did,” Cruz said.

Trump stressed his “complete and unqualified support” for Cruz before the debate on Tuesday.

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