Texas Democrat Colin Allred launches 2026 U.S. Senate campaign

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Democrat Colin Allred launched his campaign for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, making a second run at the upper chamber after failing to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz last year.

“Texans are working harder than ever, not getting as much time with their kids, missing those special moments, all to be able to afford less,” Allred, a former Dallas congressman who gave up his seat to run against Cruz, said in his announcement video. “And the people that we elected to help — politicians like John Cornyn and Ken Paxton — are too corrupt to care about us and too weak to fight for us.”

Allred is the first major Democrat to announce his candidacy for the seat currently held by Cornyn, but several others have indicated their interest, including Beto O’Rourke, a former El Paso congressman and statewide campaign veteran; U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a longtime San Antonio legislator; and state Rep. James Talarico, a four-term lawmaker from Austin who is seen as a rising star in the party.

Former astronaut Terry Virts and former flight attendant Mike Swanson are already running in the Democratic primary.

Driving Democratic hopes of winning statewide for the first time since 1994 is the potential to run against the embattled hardline Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Cornyn for the Republican nomination. Texas Democrats also hope 2026, a midterm election year, will bring a wave of backlash to the Trump administration that can help surge a Democrat to statewide office.

Whether other major Democrats will challenge Allred for the nomination remains to be seen.

More than a dozen statewide offices will appear on next year’s ballot, including governor, lieutenant governor and the attorney general seat being vacated by Paxton. Democrats hope to present a full slate of viable candidates who can mobilize voters, fundraise and blanket the state next year — a task likely made easier without a contested and expensive Senate primary.

Allred, a civil rights attorney and former NFL linebacker who was endorsed for Senate last year by Republican then-U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, enters the race with relatively high name ID, vast fundraising capabilities and, according to polls, a higher favorability rating than some other potential candidates surveyed.

In his 2026 campaign announcement, Allred highlighted his upbringing by a single mother on a teacher’s salary in Dallas, his efforts to crack an NFL roster after going undrafted, his bipartisan record in Congress and his work to open new medical facilities for veterans in Texas.

And he sought to draw a contrast with Republicans, including his potential competitors.

“In six years in Congress, I never took a dime of corporate PAC money, never traded a single stock. Never had a hint of scandal,” Allred said in his announcement video, adding that the first of a series of policy plans his campaign would roll out would be an “anti-corruption” plan. “Because at heart I’m still that undrafted kid, fighting for what’s right.”

A May poll by Texas Southern University found that 45% of voters had a favorable opinion of Allred, the highest proportion of six potential Senate candidates surveyed. A matchup between Allred and Paxton showed the Republican attorney general winning by just two percentage points. (The same poll found Paxton leading Cornyn by nine points.)

Allred’s campaign against Cruz last year — in which he pitched himself as a more effective and bipartisan alternative to the conservative firebrand — was criticized by some Democrats for its buttoned-up approach, a sharp contrast to the electrifying style O’Rourke brought in 2018, when he came within 3 points of toppling Cruz. Allred lost by 8.5 points, a wider margin than polls had shown going into Election Day, and despite having outraised Cruz throughout his campaign.

Still, he outpaced then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the state to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by nearly 14 percentage points. In a June interview on the Dallas-based Lone Star Politics show, Allred said he would run “differently” this time around, now that he’s out of Congress.

Allred first entered politics in 2018, when he flipped a Dallas-area congressional seat to oust longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions. Before that, he served in President Barack Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Disclosure: Texas Southern University - Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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