Another Democrat tries to turn Texas blue, enters primary to challenge Ted Cruz

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat, announced today that he is running for the U.S. Senate. He hopes to take the seat currently occupied by Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

Gutierrez has competition in the Democrat primary race. U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat, is already in the race. Gutierrez is an immigration lawyer and he is known as a tireless advocate for gun grabbing, especially after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. He is running because “Texas is just broken, and it’s been broken for a long time.” Gutierrez is 51-years-old (Cruz is 52, Allred is 40.) He was in the Texas House of Representatives from 2008 and the state Senate since 2021. He is one of the most progressive of the members of the Texas Senate.

Ted Cruz is running for his third Senate term. In 2018 he won the race against Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke by less than 3 percentage points. Since then he has focused on highlighting his efforts to work across the aisle on issues like infrastructure and space exploration. Gutierrez characterizes Cruz as a do-nothing-but-vote-no senator.

He characterized Cruz as “a senator that does nothing but vote no,” blasting his votes against the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which implemented moderate gun safety policies and offered billions in mental health funding after the Uvalde shooting. Cruz said he voted against those bills because they raised government spending and targeted law-abiding gun owners.

“The Republican policies of the last 30 years are exactly the kinds of policies that have put us in a state of chaos that we’re in,” Gutierrez said.

Cruz discussed his role in the Senate last month in an interview with Hearst Newspapers. The Houston Chronicle is owned by Hearst.

“My role in the Senate has been, No. 1, standing up and leading the fight against bad ideas, against extreme policies hurting the people of Texas, and, No. 2, working to deliver meaningful victories that make a difference in the lives of Texans,” Cruz, 52, said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers last month.

There is a contrast in the personalities of Allred and Gutierrez. Gutierrez is boasting about his legislative record, especially bills to prevent farmer suicides and offer mental health treatment to veterans. Gutierrez patronizingly calls Allred “a nice fellow” and then disses him for serving just four years in Congress. “I worked hard all my life, and I’ve been in office longer than he has, been in office longer than Cruz has, and I’ve done more for people than most,” Gutierrez said. Before joining the Texas Legislature, Gutierrez served on the San Antonio City Council for three years.

Allred says that he is “running to beat Ted Cruz, not turn Texas blue. Gutierrez said that flipping Texas was his goal. To be honest, any Democrat who doesn’t cop to wanting to turn Texas blue is just lying. It’s more than just beating Ted Cruz. It is to flip the largest red state back to a large blue state, as it was back in the day, pre-1994. Since 1994, every statewide office has been held by a Republican in Texas.

Allred is a civil rights attorney and former NFL player. He is in the middle of his third term. He was first elected in 2018, when he unseated a longtime Republican incumbent. Gutierrez sounds like an insecure challenger when he snarks about the fact that he has more years in elected office than Allred. Allred, though, has experience at the federal level. Gutierrez does not. Gutierrez is counting on college students to generate enthusiasm about his campaign.

Gutierrez said he plans to tour the state this summer, and will attempt to visit every Texas university, in an effort to build up grassroots support. His efforts may be stalled slightly by the impending Senate trial of now-suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton, but Gutierrez said he plans to dedicate weekends and any off days to his campaign.

“We have to make our state better,” Gutierrez said. “To simply point and yell at the problems just isn’t good enough. And to simply say right now that we’re just going to follow some appeasement theory where we go along to get along with Republicans in Texas isn’t good enough.

Frankly, I don’t know what he’s talking about with his appeasement talk. The Texas Legislature is always a spicy place when it’s in session. Democrats are not known for randomly going along to get along with Republicans. In the 2021 session, Texas Democrats made national headlines for fleeing the state rather than do their jobs and vote on bills. We’ll see how far Gutierrez gets in the primary. Is Texas going to go blue in 2024? I doubt it. Texas is purple throughout the state, though, and it is a mistake for Republicans to get complacent.