In closing remarks of his debate with incumbent Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Rep. Colin Allred — vying for Cruz’s Senate seat in a race that looks increasingly close — thanked his opponent for a “spirited” debate before piling on the Senator for his strategic divisiveness and professional rancor, saving his biggest blow for Cruz’s priorities, which Allred asserts isn’t Texas or Texans.
Instead, Cruz’s priority #1 is Ted Cruz, Allred says, referring to Cruz’s self-dealing brand of “angertainment” used in books and podcasts and to “make some money.”
Allred sought to distinguish Cruz’s purportedly backwards priorities from his own service, which he said focuses on bringing Texans — and Americans — together around “our shared values.”
Cruz, by contrast, has been “one of the most divisive Senators in the entire country,” Allred said, in an accusation that was less a broadside than a consensus. (NOTE: Divisive doesn’t mean unpopular — some voters appreciate it. A 2021 Independent article on Cruz stated: ‘You either hate him or you hate him.’)
Allred: If you don’t like how things are going in Washington, he’s responsible for it. He’s introduced this type of angertainment where you just get people upset and then you podcast about it and write a book about it and make some money on it pic.twitter.com/AXoCeuKjM4
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 16, 2024
Cruz’s 12 years in the Senate have given Allred plenty of targets, including his kissing the ring and pledging fealty to former President Donald Trump, despite having called Trump a “pathological liar” in 2016.
Allred took the meatiest cut at Cruz, however, when he told Texans in closing that “I’ll never abandon you.”
Cruz has been forgiven — or at least has survived — many questionable actions and flip-flops in his political life, but he has been unable to shake the fact that as Texas was being bombarded by tragic, fatal winter weather and a power outage in February 2021, he slipped off to Cancun to vacation with his family. Many Texans, as Allred knows, felt abandoned.
“When the lights went out,” Allred said earlier in the night, “he went to Cancun.” Texans, he’s hoping, won’t forget.