Exclusive: Colin Allred seeks to unseat incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. Here's why he's running.

In early May, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred announced a campaign to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, becoming the first high-profile Democrat to do so. He followed in July with a strong fundraising haul, reporting $6.2 million in contributions after two months.

Although Allred must first win Texas' Democratic primary in March before he gets to challenge Cruz, to this point he has directed his public attacks not at party rivals but at the incumbent senator from Houston, who is up for reelection for the first time since 2018, when he narrowly beat Beto O'Rourke, a former U.S. representative from El Paso.

Allred, a former football player at Baylor and in the NFL, is contrasting his strength with what he sees as weakness in Cruz, who controversially fled Texas for a Mexican beach during the 2021 fatal winter storm and who is often blamed with other top Republicans for sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol through false claims that President Donald Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.

Allred, elected to Congress in 2018, has acknowledged his long odds for the Senate. Texas Democrats have not won a statewide election since 1994 — a dry spell that began when Allred was in elementary school in north Dallas.

Allred, a former civil rights lawyer who turned 40 in April, recently discussed his candidacy in an exclusive interview with the American-Statesman.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Let's start with the $6.2 million fundraising total. What does that say about your momentum?

I think it's clear that Texans and folks across the country are fired up about moving on from Cruz and his divisive leadership and think I'm the right person to do it. I've built up over the last six years, running in tough races, the ability and the understanding of how to run tough races. That includes having the resources to do it but also putting in the work and having appeal.

You came out swinging in your announcement video, contrasting your bravery against Cruz's actions during the winter storm and on Jan. 6. Whose idea was that?

I wanted to lay out the fundamental differences between how Cruz sees Texas and how I see it, as a fourth-generation Texan and somebody who was raised by a single mother. But also our approach to the job is very different. Leaving town during the freeze and going on vacation to Cancún is a perfect encapsulation of Cruz's approach to the job. Texans can't count on him in a crisis. If it's not about him or about advancing his political career, then it's not much interest to him. I think every Texan knows where they were in that week. I know how busy I was and how much work there was to do.

And when it comes to Jan. 6, I think we have to talk about that Cruz was one of the architects. It was the first time in American history we didn't have a peaceful transition of power. There has to be electoral consequences for that. We have to not move past it as if it didn't happen. Cruz's role in this was every bit as important as anyone else who was involved in Jan. 6. That's certainly something I'm going to try to make sure folks know.

As a Democrat, you've been upfront that this is going to be a tough election. Is the strategy to change hearts and get Republicans to vote for a Democrat, or is it to mobilize Democratic voters?

We have to do both. My approach is to make sure we're reaching out and being available to folks who don't see themselves in this version of the Republican Party. There are a lot of folks like that who used to drive around with 'W' stickers on the back of their cars and now voted for me and supported my campaigns. But also understanding that we have a real problem with voter turnout in our state. As a former voting rights lawyer, I know a lot of the reason is behind the difficulty of voting, but it's not just that. We have not had a tradition of competitive campaigns that have helped folks get involved in their own democracy. We have to make sure we are giving the 9.5 million registered Texans who didn't vote in the last election something to vote for.

Before you get to Cruz you have to win the Democratic primary. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, recently launched his campaign. At his press conference, he said he's accomplished "a heck of a lot more in public service" than you. Do you have a response?

I'm focused on beating Ted Cruz. I'm really proud of my record in Congress. I'm not a career politician. I think that's part of my story. I played in the NFL, I have been a civil rights lawyer, I was serving the Obama administration, and then I decided to run for Congress to represent my community. My focus is on what I know is the real task here, which, of course, is to give 30 million Texans a senator who cares about them and is going to give them the honest and pragmatic leadership that they deserve. Obviously, as part of that, I have to win the primary, but we do that by showing I'm the best person to take on Cruz.

In 2018, Beto O'Rourke came within 3 percentage points of beating Cruz. What lessons do you take from that election?

We're going to build on what Beto did in 2018. Every election is different with different issues. There are a lot of Texans out there who know we can't afford six more years of Cruz in the U.S. Senate (because) he in many ways disqualified himself with his antics and is more interested in being a media personality than our senator. He's podcasting three times a week; he's a constant presence on Fox News. He's not a legislative machine in terms of getting things done.

Border security is such a big issue right now. Will you come out with a policy, and if so, what might that look like?

It's not just a single issue, and it's not just a political backdrop. We'll certainly be talking about our overall plans for immigration reform, but the border itself is one component of the broader change we need that we know can be done in a bipartisan way. We've seen what the framework has been before, whether that's in President Obama's administration or President Bush's administration. I've also signed onto Veronica Escobar's legislation, which is a good framework for us to start from.

(Escobar, D-El Paso, proposed a bipartisan bill in May to provide a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who pay taxes and undergo a background check.)

But the ultimate thing is having folks in place who actually want to solve the problem instead of use it as a political wedge issue. I see folks like Sen. (John) Cornyn, who it seems is trying to find a solution here, and I see folks like Ted Cruz who use it as a political backdrop for a Fox News hit.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Q-and-A: Why Colin Allred is seeking to challenge Ted Cruz for Senate