By all accounts, U.S. representative Colin Allred is the underdog in this year’s U.S. Senate race. Texas, after all, hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in nearly three decades. But Allred, who was born and raised in Dallas by a single mother and played football at Baylor University and in the NFL, says his “uniquely Texan” story will resonate with voters. He’s also playing up his willingness to go up against the Democratic establishment—as he did in January, when he joined congressional Republicans and a handful of Democrats to support a resolution condemning President Biden’s handling of the nation’s southern border. But what’s really boosting his campaign, he says, is the sentiment that he repeatedly hears from voters: they’re ready to move on from his opponent, two-term Republican senator Ted Cruz.
Texas Monthly: Which aspect of your background has prepared you for the Senate?
Colin Allred: I have a uniquely Texan story. I’m a fourth-generation Texan and harbor so many of the contradictions that make us Texans. I have a distant relative who was the thirty-third governor of Texas—and I have relatives who were slaves here.
TM: You’re related to the thirty-third governor of Texas?
CA: James V. Allred [who served from 1935 to 1939] was my grandfather’s third cousin.
TM: Allred was an ardent supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. Did your family talk about what kind of governor he was?
CA: When the governor was a federal judge in South Texas and my grandfather was the chief inspector at the Gateway Bridge in Brownsville, they would meet for lunch and talk about the old days. So yes, I was always aware of Governor Allred’s positions. He was also an ardent opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, and my family has always been proud of that.
TM: Did his example inspire you as a politician?
CA: I have always felt that there was a tradition of Texas leaders like Governor Allred, Speaker Sam Rayburn, and LBJ who were authentic Texans who kept their humble beginnings in mind and passed some of the most consequential legislation in American history to help working people.
TM: Your mother is from Brownsville; your grandfather worked for U.S. Customs. Has that affected how you see the border?
CA: Too often our border communities are treated as a place where folks go on a political safari. They go to see the sights and point out the problems. But then they don’t give anything back to these communities, they don’t try to solve any of those problems, and they often don’t recognize the great things about our border.
That’s one of the issues I’ve had with Cruz. Yes, we have to have a secure border. But we also have to support our border communities.
TM: Did your grandfather ever tell you about his time working on the border?
CA: My grandfather died before I was born. But I grew up hearing stories about him. According to my mom and my aunt, he and I share a lot of similarities—we both lost our hair at an early age, we were both very athletic. He worked very hard and treated people with dignity. He would understand, I think, how I try to approach immigration and border security: while we’re talking about having a secure border and keeping our communities safe, we also have to treat people with dignity. That’s the Texas that I know.
TM: So why did you pivot to politics in 2018, after working as a lawyer?
CA: I was always planning on going to law school. I come from very practical folks—my mom and her sister, who helped raise me, were teachers. My uncle worked at the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]. So I wanted to make sure I got into a career that nobody could take away.
I served in the Obama administration under then–Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro, another Texan, and then I ran for Congress in the Thirty-second Congressional District, where I was born and raised. I wanted to give back to the community that had given me so much, and I thought we had a congressman who didn’t reflect the community that I knew. I feel similarly about Ted Cruz. He doesn’t reflect the state that I know.
TM: After Biden’s debate performance, you were pretty tight-lipped on whether he should step down. A fellow Texan, Lloyd Doggett, was the first Democrat in Congress to call for him to do so. Did you think he went too far?
CA: I think Lloyd has served our state for a long time with dignity, and I think he’s entitled to express his opinion. That was his decision, and I respected it.
TM: Kamala Harris has caught a lot of flak for her tenure as Biden’s so-called border czar. And you’ve distanced yourself from Biden’s border policies. Are there differences between her stance on the border and yours?
CA: A secure border has to be coupled with making our legal immigration system work better. At times in the past, I’ve been disappointed with what I’ve perceived as a lack of urgency around this issue, especially from the Democratic Party. I hope we don’t see that in Harris’s campaign.
TM: Do you think a Harris administration would be tougher on the border than Biden has been?
CA: I know that if I’m in the U.S. Senate, I’ll make sure that the border is a priority. I’m quite confident that [Republican] Senator John Cornyn and I can come together on a bipartisan effort to secure the border and to reform our immigration system. There was legislation earlier this year in the Senate that would’ve put billions of dollars toward supporting our border communities. No state would have benefited more than Texas, but Cruz and other Republicans shot this effort down because, in my opinion, they wanted to have an issue to run on in November.
That bill would have allotted billions of dollars for additional immigration judges and administrative personnel and included changes to our asylum policies. I believe if I’m elected we can pick that legislation back up and get that done.
TM: It seems like Texas Democrats are always thinking that the Texas Republican Party is going to go so far to the right that it will create a backlash. The last Lege session passed some pretty extreme laws—banning gender-affirming care for trans kids; eliminating DEI offices in higher education; limiting cities’ ability to pass local laws—but I’m not seeing a sizable shift to the left. Is the state still very much a conservative place, at least in terms of statewide politics?
CA: I don’t see things that way. This is a very stark decision that Texans have in front of them: You have the most bipartisan Texan in Congress running against one of the most extreme senators in the country. And one thing I know about us, as Texans, is that we’re not extremists. Ordinary Texans are the ones crying out for leadership that brings us together instead of someone like Cruz, who I believe wants to pit us against each other.
I plan on beating Cruz, and I plan on bringing us together as a state and using this as an opportunity to show the country who Texans really are. I talk to folks all the time who have been embarrassed by Cruz, and my message to them is: You don’t have to be embarrassed by your senator. You can get a new one.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Colin Allred Wants to Show the Country Who Texans Really Are.” Subscribe today.
