Elections 2024: Can Ted Cruz Be Beaten?

Democrats are eager to take on Ted Cruz. Maybe they know something we don’t.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2023

         When Kay Bailey Hutchison announced she would not run for re-election in 2012, she set off the first contest for an open Texas senatorial seat since 1952. Hutchison had taken the seat from the Democrats, winning it after Lloyd Bentsen was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1993. (She defeated Bob Krueger, who had been appointed to the seat by Texas Governor Ann Richards. That is all we shall say, or should have to say, about Bob Krueger, and we certainly will not mention the “Terminator” ad.)

         The 2012 open seat election drew interest from a smorgasbord of ambitious politicos, particularly on the Republican side. Several dropped out as the dynamics of the primary became evident: state Sen. Florence Shapiro, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, former Secretary of State (and now undistinguished congressman) Roger Williams.

         Eventually Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, whose CIA background, personal wealth, and immaculate manicure had secured him that job in 2002, was left facing Ted Cruz, the state’s former Solicitor General, a brash lawyer born in Canada, raised in Houston, and educated at Princeton and Harvard Law. Cruz thumped Dewhurst in a primary runoff, then cruised to victory over Paul Sadler in the November general election.

         Ted Cruz embodied the new, Tea Party-driven dynamic in the Texas GOP: loud and angry, contemptuous of government itself, nihilistic and willing to oppose something just because it was the other guy’s idea. Cruz was MAGA before there was MAGA; he was Trump (whom he loathes) before there was Trump.

         As the Houston Chronicle opined only two years after he took office,

Unlike Kay Bailey Hutchison, his predecessor in the Senate, Cruz isn't in Washington to get things done for his state. He's not there to govern. He sees himself as an agitator, a disruptive force who disdains crafting solutions to problems or compromising with his colleagues toward a pragmatic end. He's made a lot of noise during his time in Washington, but except for partially shutting down the federal government in 2013, it's hard to point to much of anything Cruz has done.

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         In the intervening years, he’s gotten worse, if anything. Cruz, it should never be forgotten, played a leading role in the attempt to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election and, not to put too fine a point on it, to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States. More recently, he’s ignored his senate duties to … well, I’ll let him tell you.

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         The junior senator from Texas is up for re-election in 2024. Perhaps inspired by his miserable record of attending to the needs of his 30 million constituents, Democrats seem eager to challenge him. Before we talk about them, let’s talk about the (literal) elephant in the Texas voting booth.

Texas Is Still a Red State

         While it is true Beto O’Rourke gave Ted Cruz a scare in 2018, losing by only 2.5 percentage points, Republicans fortunes at the top of the ticket have been better recently. In 2020, Donald Trump won the state by six points and John Cornyn cruised to a 10-point victory over M.J. Hegar. In 2022 GOP statewide candidates’ margin of victory averaged 11 points. (One exception was Ken Paxton, who defeated his opponent, lawyer Rochelle Garza, by only 9.7 percentage points.)

         Any handicapping of the 2024 Senate race must begin with this fact: Texas is still a reliably Republican state. There will be other factors at play, though. For one thing, 2024 will be a presidential election year, with s surge in Democratic turnout (especially if Donald Trump is again the nominee) that could make a Senate race more competitive.

         For another, polling data shows that (according to Jim Henson and Joshua Blank at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin), while Texas Republicans have a positive view of Ted Cruz (77% favorable, 12% unfavorable), that does not extend to all Texans, with whom he is underwater (41% favorable, 47% unfavorable).  

         So, with the caveat that we’re still two months+ from the filing deadline, and we do not know what will happen with already-declared candidates, here is my overview of the Democratic primary race.

The Runners

         Colin Allred, 40, is a former Baylor University and NFL (Tennessee Titans) football standout who earned a law degree and worked in the Obama Administration before being elected to Congress in 2018. He was re-elected in 2020 and 2022, and announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on May 3, 2023.   

         Allred is the early favorite in the race. He raised $6.2 million in the first two months of the race, (N.B. Other candidates entered the race after the June 30^th filing period ended. New campaign finance reports, through September 30^th, will be due on October 15, at which time we will get an idea of their fundraising success.) He has also been endorsed by a number of state and federal elected officials in the months after his announcement, as well as some national organizations.

         Roll Call’s Stuart Rothenberg penned an analysis of the race soon after Allred entered, concluding “the challenger will need to run a near perfect race to oust Cruz. Still, given Cruz’s personality and style, that’s not impossible.”  

         My take: Colin Allred may be the best candidate Democrats can field in this race. He’s got a great personal story, is telegenic (see his announcement video), and has demonstrated fundraising prowess at the national level. None of these things guarantee success, and there are still 13 months to go, but he is clearly a serious candidate. Going forward, he needs to be competitive with Cruz in fundraising and to highlight his reputation as a moderate problem-solver in contrast to Cruz’s hyperpartisanship.

         Roland Gutierrez, 53, is an immigration attorney and state senator representing the San Antonio suburbs and large stretches of south and west Texas. He was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2008, and to the Texas Senate in 2020. He was re-elected in 2022. He announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on July 10, 2023.

         After an undistinguished session in 2021, he found his prophetic voice after the Uvalde Massacre in May 2022. When Texas Monthly named him its “Bull of the Brazos” for the 2023 session – a distinction reserved to “big personalities: obstinate and willing to speak truth to power,” it had this to say:

After a special committee filed a politely received report in July 2022, intended to be a final official word from the Lege on the shooting before the session began, Gutierrez refused to stay silent. He drew public attention to legislative intransigence on a gun bill that, had it been in place before Uvalde, could have prevented the shooter from obtaining his powerful murder weapon. In a remarkable speech on the floor in May, Gutierrez challenged his colleagues to request the photo and video evidence collected at Uvalde so they could see it themselves. “I’ve been angry for a long time,” he said, his voice breaking. The pictures had changed him. “You’ve never seen so much blood in your life.” He told a reporter that Abbott and Patrick could “go to hell.”

         If, like me, you think the Uvalde Massacre represents a moral failure for all Texans, then Gutierrez’s advocacy is both a political and a spiritual imperative.

         My take: I admire Gutierrez for his stand on gun safety, but Texans are pretty far down the NRA rabbit hole, and the issue seems unlikely to help him next year. Besides, his advocacy on Uvalde has given him a distinctly regional appeal. Perhaps he would do better to take on Congressman Tony Gonzales, whose district overlaps Gutierrez’s significantly. Gonzales alienated elements of his own party and was censured by the Texas GOP, which may back a more right-wing primary candidate against him next spring. If that happens, it would make CD-23 more competitive for a well-funded Democrat, and Gutierrez should look hard at that race.  

The Also-Rans   

         These candidates are noteworthy only because they already hold political office. But they have so far not demonstrated the ability to organize a fundraising or grassroots base, or articulated a distinct rationale, for their candidacy.

         Mark Gonzalez, 43, was the district attorney of Nueces County until he resigned that position on September 5 to announce his candidacy for the US Senate. At the time, he was facing a recall petition to have him removed from office for his announced refusal to prosecute abortion or transgender medical care cases.

         Gonzalez was first elected in 2016, part of a new wave of district attorneys dedicated to reform of the criminal justice system. I can understand why he is running for the US Senate but am not sure what his lane is going forward. His strong suit – cutting-edge criminal justice reform – is somewhat suspect among mainstream Democrats and anathema to partisan Republicans.

         Carl Sherman, 57, is a three-term House member from DeSoto. Before he was elected to the Lege, he worked in city government, including a stint as the mayor of DeSoto. He is a senior pastor of a church in Hutchins, and announced his candidacy on Saturday, September 9. He has not yet created a webpage for his Senate candidacy. I cannot figure out why he’d give up a safe seat to run for the Senate, but then I do not know DeSoto politics very well.

The Never-Rans

         None of these people strike me as a having a personal story, an eye-grabbing position of issues, or (most important) the fundraising and organizing ability to move into the top tier. But then, in 1996 no one thought Victor Morales was a serious candidate to take on Phil Gramm until he was. According to Ballotpedia, the following are also running:

• Tracy Andrus, criminologist and nonprofit founder, minister, Marshall

• Aaron Arguijo, coffee shop owner and U.S. Navy veteran, San Antonio

• Victor Dunn, workers compensation consultant and candidate for Texas's 1st congressional district in 2022, Kilgore

• Meri Gomez, accountant and tax professional, Mission

• Steven Keough, law professor and retired U.S. Navy captain, San Antonio

• John Love III, financial advisor, former Midland city councilor, and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020, Midland

• Heli Rodriguez-Prilliman, tech entrepreneur, Fort Worth

• Sherri Taylor

• Thierry Tchenko, home repair nonprofit executive and former associate director of the District of Columbia Office of Policy, Houston

Concluding Thoughts

         Is there any chance of unseating Ted Cruz? Unlikely. An Axios analysis sums it up well: “The 2024 Senate map is historically favorable for Republicans: Republicans are aggressively contesting at least eight Democratic-held seats with Democrats hoping — in a best-case scenario — of putting Sen. Ted Cruz's Texas seat in play.”

         CNN lists Texas #9 among the ten Senate seats most likely to flip in 2024, but is not optimistic (“unseating Cruz in a state Trump won by nearly 6 points in 2020 will be a tall order”). Roll Call lists the Texas race as among its 10 most interesting to watch but ultimately judges it “Safe Republican.” The Cook Political Report rates the Texas race as “Likely Republican,” as does US News & World Report.

         But politics – even Texas politics – is sometimes unpredictable. Donald Trump’s likely spot on the ballot presents all kinds of unprecedent questions. In the mixmaster of a crazy, future-defining election, all kinds of things can happen. Stay tuned!