Can Colin Allred finally score Texas for Democrats?

Ken Paxton is giving Kari Lake vibes

Texas has long been the white whale for Democrats. They sunk $80 million into Beto O’Rourke’s campaign in 2018 (the most ever spent on a Senate race at the time) in a bid to unseat Ted Cruz but lost by nearly three points. In the latest attempt to unseat Cruz, they spent more than $90 million on Colin Allred’s race in 2024 and he lost by more than eight points. Some Democrats complain that donor money is being wasted on states like Texas when it could be spent on battleground states instead. Afterall, Democrats haven’t won statewide in Texas since Ann Richards was governor in 1994. Down-ballot Democrats will say the money wasn’t wasted, but no one can deny that in the last election, even the deep-blue border counties went for Donald Trump.

But there may be hope for Democrats, and in my interview with Allred, he seemed to see the opening. A new poll by the Senate Leadership Fund, leaked to Punchbowl News, shows incumbent Senator John Cornyn losing to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by 10 points in a three-way primary race that includes Congressman Wesley Hunt. In a one-on-one race, Paxton crushes Cornyn by 16 points.

But Paxton is a problematic candidate, with multiple felony indictments for securities fraud. His own party attempted to impeach him, citing patterns of alleged misconduct and lawbreaking. He’s giving Republicans Kari Lake vibes because he’s clearly unbeatable in a Republican primary where the base loves their red meat, and Paxton serves it raw.

But in a general election match-up against Allred, the same poll shows Paxton losing to him by one point. It also shows Cornyn beating Allred by six points if he’s the Republican nominee.

In the above interview—which you can watch on Youtube or listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio and Amazon Music—Allred sounds like a candidate ready to jump into the race.

“It does look like from what I've seen, and from what some of my Republican friends here in Texas will tell me, that they think that Ken Paxton