HOUSTON — Sen. Ted Cruz retained his seat in the United States Senate with an Election Day victory over Rep. Colin Allred, according to projections from CBS News and the Associated Press.
Cruz, who lives in Houston, has been in the U.S. Senate since 2013. He first won a Senate seat in 2012, when he beat Democrat Paul Sadler. In 2018, Cruz narrowly defeated Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. Cruz also ran for president in 2016, but dropped out in the primary. It was a presidential election won by Donald Trump.
Allred, who is from Dallas, has been in the U.S. House since 2019, first beating incumbent Pete Sessions in the 2018 election. He beat Republican challengers Genevieve Collins in 2020 and Antonio Swand in 2022. Allred is a former football player for the Tennessee Titans and Baylor Bears.
Ahead of Election Day, KHOU 11’s Len Cannon sat down with both Cruz and Allred to talk about their policies, their politics, the campaign and each other.
How long has Ted Cruz been in office?
Cruz has served Texas in the U.S. Senate since 2013 after defeating Democratic challenger Paul Sadler. Cruz took over the seat from Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who opted not to seek re-election in 2012.
The Harvard-educated Cruz became the first Hispanic to serve as a U.S. senator from Texas. Before that, Cruz was a domestic policy advisor to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign and served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008.
Who's running against Ted Cruz?
Allred, a Dallas native, is a former NFL linebacker who played college football at Baylor. After a severe neck injury during a game against the Dallas Cowboys, Allred retired and enrolled in law school at the University of California, Berkeley.
Allred first considered going into sports law but got into Texas politics in 2014 while working as a voter protection lawyer for then-gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and the Democratic political group Battleground Texas. Allred was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, defeating long-time Congressman Pete Sessions.
Previous races
Cruz easily defeated Sadler by more than 1.2 million votes in 2012 but needed everything he could to defeat Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke in 2018.
Only 215,000 votes separated the two, but Cruz managed to use rural and mid-sized counties across Texas to secure his second term. It's something he leaned on again ahead of Election Day against Allred.
Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.