SAN ANTONIO — Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, the most outspoken advocate for victims and families of the Uvalde school shooting over the last year, launched a campaign for U.S. Senate on Monday morning.
“We are one of the most robust economies by any state in the United States, and yet, we are 45th in education spending, we're 45th in education performance, we're dead last on funding for mental healthcare, we've got people who are in office who refuse to do Medicaid expansion which essentially gives healthcare to working class families at no cost to them. So, every year they're dipping in six, seven, ten thousand dollars to handle their healthcare costs. [U.S. Senator] Ted Cruz could've fixed that,” Gutierrez told WFAA’s Natalie Haddad in his first statewide TV interview.
The U.S. Senate race that Gutierrez is joining will be the highest-profile and most-watched campaign in the state next year.
Gutierrez, an immigration attorney, is a Democrat who represents San Antonio, Uvalde and a wide swath of the Texas–Mexico border from Eagle Pass to Big Bend.
Since the massacre at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School in May 2022, Gutierrez, a gun owner himself, has called for raising the age to purchase some semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. The shooter who murdered the classroom full of fourth graders and their two teachers was 18 years old and legally purchased his weapons.
Gutierrez has also called for accountability inside the Texas Department of Public Safety for dozens of troopers failing to follow training and immediately enter the fourth-grade classroom to engage the shooter and save lives. It took more than an hour for a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol team to arrive on scene, breach the classroom door and kill the teenage shooter.
Despite Gutierrez’s high-profile pushes and emotional pleas to fellow lawmakers, the Republican-led legislature dismissed age requirements to purchase weapons and Gov. Greg Abbott has neither fired nor disciplined DPS Director Steve McGraw.
But Gutierrez’s biggest challenge now is to increase his name identification with Democratic primary voters across Texas and raise the millions of dollars it will take to run a statewide campaign.
“We have Republicans in office who call this a Texas Miracle, including Ted Cruz,” Gutierrez told WFAA. “And when things go wrong, they want to blame some immigrant for the problems of Texas. Well, there's not an immigrant that is responsible for the poor education outcomes, that is responsible for the poor healthcare outcomes, the poor electrical grid outcomes, the fact that we don't have common-sense gun solutions," he explained. "I'm not a prognosticator. I'm not a pundit. I'm just a man that has volunteered for public service for the last twenty years. I worked hard for those twenty years and I'm gonna continue to work hard. I think that when people hear our message and they understand where I came from, they understand I was born and raised in this state, they understand there's a real value in hard work – I think that they're gonna see a different message, and it's my hope that we get them to support our campaign and our candidacy."
Gutierrez faces an uphill fight for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He will first face U.S. Rep. Collin Allred in the Democratic primary on Super Tuesday, which is on March 5, 2024.
Allred launched his campaign early – in May. So far, he has raised $6.2 million through the second quarter and transferred $2.4 million from his congressional campaign account, giving him an early head start with money.
Plus, Allred leads Gutierrez in an early poll from the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation. In May, the TxHPF survey showed 33% of Democratic primary voters would vote for Allred, 22% for Gutierrez (before he announced) and 4% for John Love.
Still, Allred and Gutierrez remain unknown to many Democratic primary voters across the state, with 41% of those surveyed saying they remain undecided.
"You know, I don't know Colin Allred. I've spoken to him one time. He called me about 60 days ago. I'm sure he's a nice person. The fact is, I've done a heck of a lot more than he has in public service,” Gutierrez told WFAA. “It's my intent to sit down with people in the [Rio Grande] Valley, in Houston, in Dallas, El Paso, and Corpus [Christi] and everywhere in between, Austin, and have a discussion. You know, Beto O'Rourke ignited Texans. I'll outwork Colin Allred and I'll work harder than Ted Cruz. I'm sure Colin's a nice guy, but I'm gonna outwork him because that's the way I was raised."
Perhaps the most interesting element of the TxHPF survey is that Cruz appears weak against an unknown challenger. The TxHPF poll showed Cruz with 47% of support and Allred with 40%. A head-to-head match-up between Gutierrez and Cruz was not asked since Gutierrez had yet to declare his candidacy.
A spokesperson for Sen. Cruz issued the following statement in response to Gutierrez's announcement:
“We welcome Senator Gutierrez to the race. Texans will now get to watch Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez slug it out for who can be the most radical leftist in the state. Meanwhile, Sen. Cruz will continue passionately defending Texas and delivering real results for 30 million Texans."
WFAA questioned Gutierrez on a number of national issues facing the U.S. to gauge his positions:
You’re an immigration attorney, where do you stand on border security?
"Listen, I voted against these border security bills because they're nonsense. They're political stunt by [Texas Governor] Greg Abbott and others to waste our taxpayer dollars, to house some migrants from time-to-time. Listen, we deport thousands of people every day. They don't talk about that. Most people get deported. That's the reality. Not their talking point. That's reality. Biden Administration needs to talk a little bit more about that reality… allow people to come up to live this American dream into the industries that need it… As far as security's concerned, half of the AR-15s that are sold in the United States end up in the hands of [the drug] cartels in Mexico. We do need to be aggressive. We need to do what we did in Colombia. Get the DEA involved. Infiltrate Mexican cartels, because they're hurting our economies, hurting our people, and they're hurting folks in our southern border… The state's stunts, [Governor] Greg Abbott's stunts, are simply that. He's giving rides to people that have already [been] processed, that are three months away from a work permit, sends them to New York, Massachusetts, California just to make himself look good. There's plenty of people in hospitality, ranching and farming in Texas that would love to be able to have those folks work for them because they can't find Americans that want to do that job.”
How much more should the U.S. get involved in the war in Ukraine?
"Ukraine is about democracy. We must fight to maintain democracy in Ukraine or any part of the world because when its challenged, it affects us. We cannot allow fascist dictators like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to take us back to World War II. We cannot allow ourselves to be in a situation where they overrun countries in Europe. Cannot happen. Must not happen. Just like democracy is challenged there, it's also eroding here."
Should the U.S. militarily protect Taiwan against an invasion from China?
"We have to do everything in our power to our partners, Taiwan is certainly a partner that leads the world in semiconductor production. But we'll do everything diplomatically first… there's plenty of economic pressures and economic diplomacies that can be had with China before anything happens in Taiwan. That's just the reality of things."
What is the greatest threat facing the United States today?
"It's fascism. People like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and [Florida Governor] Ron DeSantis that want to go after Disney, want to blame everything on immigration. They scream nationalist, they hold, they wrap themselves around the flag. You know what? I'm all about the United States of America. It's the country that gave my father the opportunity to be able to have his son run for the United States Senate. And that's pretty amazing. But the country I was raised in wasn't about burning books. It wasn't about telling women what to do with their bodies. It wasn't about blaming people on the margins; gay, lesbian, transgender, and trying to shame them and blame them for what's truly ailing us. We deserve so much more from our leaders. We deserve a real understanding of what's wrong and we deserve that they begin to talk about it and solve the problems."
Cruz is running for his third term and barely won six years ago against former congressman Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso.
The 2024 Democratic primary is Tuesday, March 5.
The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.