Democrat Colin Allred brings campaign for U.S. Senate to Corpus Christi

After a visit to the Port of Corpus Christi on Wednesday afternoon, Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred attended a political rally that evening, drawing a strong contingent of local supporters.

Fewer than 100 days stand between now and the 2024 general election, and with the fourth-generation Texan set to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz on Nov. 5, the visit was a chance to see what’s being done with major investments in local infrastructure and talk with Texans who are excited about his run for office in his home city of Dallas.

Allred met the Caller-Times over coffee on Wednesday afternoon to discuss some of the highest priorities in Texas politics.

Transportation and infrastructure top that list. The Congressman voted for passing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. The first project is funding a $14 million project to replace the U.S. Highway 59 San Antonio River Bridge in Goliad County, which he said will save millions of dollars in reduced travel time and provide real safety benefits for all.

The second includes $157.3 million for the Port of Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project, contributing to an ongoing effort to support improvements in the state’s ports, roads and bridges.

In addition to being a core part of the economy that brings jobs and opportunity to the region, infrastructure provides an opportunity to approach the needs of Texans in their communities through bipartisanship rather than division, Allred said.

“I don’t see us as Democrats, independents, or Republicans—I never have, and I never will,” he said. “I see us as Texans. We can have leadership that tries to bring us together around our shared values instead of pitting us against each other.”

For a region of the country that is home to the sprawling Permian Basin in West Texas and the Barnett Shale in Fort Worth, two major sources of oil and gas production, Allred hopes his goal of uniting Americans across the political spectrum, including those who work or who have friends or family who work in the energy sector, could be the key to helping him gain the votes to unseat Cruz, who is seeking a third term in the U.S. Senate.

Allred said he’d met with Corpus Christi residents who are being impacted by the proposed building of a desalination plant in Corpus Christi's Hillcrest neighborhood.

“We have to try and meet our needs for our industry and our economy in a way that is empathetic and understanding, and also try to do it with minimal invasiveness for communities,” Allred said. “That’s a difficult balance at times. We have to have somebody who will be an advocate for people while also understanding that we need to make some of these investments, because literally hundreds of thousands of jobs are tied to some of these projects.

“I understand what it’s like not to have a lot of options and feel like you’re having something imposed on you,” he said. “But I also recognize that we’re growing incredibly rapidly—that our industry is growing rapidly—and we have to have some of these really important infrastructure pieces in place, because that industry also employs folks and gives them a chance to get into a good job and a career and get their families out of potentially poverty or into a better place into the middle class. That’s the balance I’ve always tried to strike.”

Readers may know the Congressman’s story of how he was raised by a single mother who was also a public-school teacher in Dallas for 27 years. He attended public schools and won a scholarship to play football at Baylor University, becoming a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans in 2007.

After attending law school at the University of California, Berkeley, he became a civil rights lawyer and served in the Office of General Counsel for the Department of Housing and Urban Development under former Secretary Julián Castro, another Texas Democrat.

Allred said his decision to run for Congress in 2018 in the 32nd district of Texas where he was born and raised was personal, and that he considers himself the most bipartisan Texan in Congress since being elected.

“I do think that I’m running for Senate now both to have a change in terms of—I think we have a very extreme senator—but also because I think that freedom is in many ways under attack,” he said.

He gained his seat in the House the same year that Beto O’Rourke, then a little-known U.S. Representative from El Paso, came within about 2.5 percentage points of unseating Cruz, drawing an unusually narrow margin in a statewide race.

Since winning the Democratic nomination March 5, 2024, he has been traveling the state to energize Democrats and appeal to independent voters, launching a coordinated grassroots effort to share volunteers with the Texas Democratic Party for events, rallies, phone banks and voter registration. Wednesday's rally in Corpus Christi came after an official kick off at a rally in Houston of his new endeavor, “Texas Offense,” a nod to his football career.

Ultimately, the election will be about the importance of choosing the candidate who is serious about investing in communities and balancing the needs of industry with community rather than focusing on divisive issues and culture wars—the radicalism that defines his opponent, Allred stressed.

He pointed out that Cruz has pushed for a national ban on abortion and certain forms of birth control, as well as opposed immigration legislation, simply on political terms and due to the outcomes that they would have on the election.

“That has to be so outrageous to every Texan, that we have a senator who would rather have a political issue than try and solve it,” he said. “That’s not the point of the office. If you have a problem, folks expect you to try and address it.

He cited the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, resulting in a near-total ban on abortion, stating the need to codify the right to an abortion by introducing federal legislation.

“I voted for it in the House of Representatives,” he said. “Now, it needs to go through the Senate.

“To me, that’s just going back to where we have been for the last 50 years that folks have come to expect and understand, and that to me would help restore a fundamental freedom to Texas women and families,” Allred said.

He said that he thinks the impact of the near-total ban on abortion is only beginning to be felt, sharing a story of how he and his wife have raised two boys in Dallas in the last five years, saying that “few decisions are more impactful on your life than when and how to start a family.”

“In every pregnancy, every doctor’s appointment, every ultrasound and genetic test, you hold your breath and hope you don’t get the news that many Texas women get every day—that there’s a problem with the pregnancy, with the baby,” he said. “When you get that news, those rooms in there with your doctor—and I’ve been there with my wife, every single time—those rooms are too small to have Ted Cruz or big government in there telling you what your options are.

“That’s a conversation between you and your doctor to decide what’s best,” he said.

While Texas is a hub for contentious issues including abortion and the U.S. border, the issues aren’t unsolvable, he emphasized.

“To me, we are fully capable of having a secure and humane border—one that’s fair but that’s also not chaotic,” he said. “We’ve had legislation to try and bring billions of dollars in resources to this problem.”

He referred to a bipartisan effort led by U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, in February that he said called for additional immigration judges, administrative personnel and border patrol officers to be deployed to Texas communities to address shortfalls with the process that grants asylum to migrants crossing into the U.S.

In Congress, he championed the Dignity Act, a major bipartisan border security bill designed to provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and others living in the U.S., as well as surge resources to the Border Patrol and border communities.

“I’ll make sure we have a secure, non-chaotic border and reform our legal immigration system so that works much better than it does right now, because it’s broken,” he said. “I’ll do that in a way that will help our economy and also provide us with a pathway forward for folks like dreamers who deserve a pathway out of the shadows.”

Allred announced his intent to challenge Cruz for his title on May 3, 2023, in a three-minute video posted on social media. The video recognized Allred’s life story while taking multiple shots at Cruz, including his role in events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his trip to Cancun during the 2021 winter freeze.

“I think I know who we are as Texans, and I fundamentally believe that we’re not who Ted Cruz says we are—that we’re not as selfish or hard-hearted,” he said. “Because if we were, my life wouldn’t have been possible, being raised by a single mom in Dallas, and I wouldn’t have been able to do the things that I’ve been able to because of the community I came from.”

More: 'I know we're better': U.S. Rep. Colin Allred shares thoughts on Texas politics

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Colin Allred brings campaign for U.S. Senate to Corpus Christi