The conceit in the ad is that former college football star and current U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and former NFL player and current U.S. Representative Colin Allred (D-TX) look alike — or legislate alike — or are, anyway, often mistaken for one another.
In the post below, after Allred sarcastically introduces himself as Booker, Booker comes into the camera’s view and makes a pitch to help Allred further erase the distance (and difference) between them.
Right now the two lawmakers operate in different chambers of Congress — Booker is asking for donations to help Allred’s campaign to get elevated this November and join him in the Senate.
Proud to have the support of my friend @CoryBooker in this Senate race! Chip in $5 to help us beat Ted Cruz: https://t.co/pW2li9xrop pic.twitter.com/1jtK2crNsf
— Colin Allred (@ColinAllredTX) October 6, 2024
In order to do that, Allred has to defeat incumbent Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in a race that looks increasingly close as election day nears.
Having run for President in 2016, Cruz is one of the most recognizable lawmakers in the country. Acknowledged as a brilliant student at both Princeton University and Harvard Law School before entering private practice and then politics, Cruz has held his Senate seat since 2013. His ill-timed trip to Cancun while Texas was being battered by catastrophic storms in 2021 had earned him the enduring nickname “Cancun Ted” from his antagonists.
Cruz’s pugnacious style has even turned some in the GOP against him — a Newsweek article a month from the election began by reporting that Cruz was “facing a growing rebellion within his party as a wave of Texas Republicans rally behind his opponent, Representative Colin Allred.”
Allred, Republican former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger announced, had assembled a “Republicans for Allred coalition” in Texas that included many former George W. Bush circle figures.
Liz Cheney, the anti-MAGA former Wyoming Congresswoman, endorsed Allred with a scorching assessment of his opponent, saying: “I’ve known Ted Cruz for 20 years. And it’s been clear. Everybody who knows Ted Cruz, and I’m sure most of you in this room know Ted Cruz, nobody thinks Ted Cruz is a man of great honor.”
The hirsute Cruz is called out by Booker more lightly in the video, but called out both by name and by contrast, as Booker tells people that the goal of his Allred endorsement is to put “two handsome bald guys in the Senate.”