AUSTIN (Nexstar) — In the razor-thin race for U.S. Senate, Ted Cruz and Colin Allred are hoping to portray a bipartisan image and attract voters from the other side. The race has created some unlikely political friendships and led longtime partisan officials to break with their allies and endorse based on principle over party.
“I am a Texan and I am an American long before I’m a Republican,” former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said. He served the county for 26 years, including as County Judge from 2006 until 2022. He’s a conservative Republican, but he said he can no longer support Sen. Cruz.
“I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was the insurrection on January 6,” he said. “Cruz supported and worked with Trump to basically try to stop the certification of votes.”
Whitley also pointed to some of Allred’s bipartisan appeals, criticizing Cruz’ lack of support for the CHIPS Act, the PACT Act, and this year’s bipartisan border bill.
“I think what Tarrant County people are looking at is, they’re looking at the character. And the character goes back to the fact that you let someone disrespect your wife, and you didn’t do anything about it, that you left the state in time of crisis to go to the beaches of Cancun while Allred was back passing out food in the food banks, and then the insurrection,” Whitley said. “We can disagree on policies. We really can. But if I know I’ve got someone of good character, then I know what they’re doing, they’re doing it for what they truly believe is the right reason.”
Whitley’s county is perhaps one of the most interesting in Texas politics — and certainly one of the most competitive. In 2016, Donald Trump won Tarrant County by nearly nine points. Since then, the county voted blue in 2018 and 2020 for Beto O’Rourke and Joe Biden — both winning the county by less than one point. In 2022, Gov. Abbott flipped Tarrant back to red by four points.
The Rio Grande Valley is also a battleground as both campaigns hope to court Latino voters. Former State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. is an authoritative figure in South Texas politics — after 32 years representing Brownsville as a Democrat in the state senate, he’s all in for Ted Cruz.
“He’s very effective. As a public official, I really feel he’s got the pulse of the community much more so than other people,” Lucio said. “I know that with him we’re going to have someone that will protect the unborn.”
Lucio has long been a conservative Democrat, unapologetically letting his Catholic faith guide his politics and often bucking his party on the issue of abortion. But he also pointed to Cruz’ noncontroversial, bipartisan achievements as a reason to endorse him.
“The Texas economy is important, and especially there, I know that Senator Cruz was called upon to work on some permits for international bridges, a couple in the Laredo area, one in El Paso, and one in Brownsville. And he did that effectively by proposing legislation that that got bipartisan support. So you can count on our senator to do the right thing,” Lucio said.
While both campaigns are leaning into their ability to cross the aisle, it’s unclear how many more voters there are to convince. In the latest Nexstar poll from The Hill and Emerson College, only five percent of Texas likely voters reported they were undecided.
But the poll found Cruz leads Allred by a single point — so each candidate’s ability to reach the other side may make all the difference.