Democratic Texas state senator launches bid for Ted Cruz's Senate seat
Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez announced Monday he will run for U.S. Senate against Ted Cruz, making him the second prominent Democrat to challenge the incumbent Republican.
Gutierrez, whose district includes San Antonio and the town of Uvalde, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school last year, criticized Cruz and other Republicans for having “abandoned” rural Texas communities in a new campaign video.
“What happened in Uvalde wasn’t just about guns. It was about neglect — the neglect of rural Texas, the neglect of the systems in this state that are supposed to keep us safe,” Gutierrez said in the video.
“I’m running against Ted Cruz because everything that we’ve seen in this state has been nothing but taking care of rich people, while the poor people, the working class, get screwed over,” added Gutierrez, who also criticized Cruz for his decision to vacation in Cancun during an intense winter storm that triggered statewide blackouts and killed 800 people in 2021.
In his 2018 Senate reelection race, Cruz beat Democratic former Rep. Beto O’Rourke by less than three percentage points in a closer-than-expected race. Democrats have not won a statewide election in Texas since 1994 and have not represented Texas in the U.S. Senate since 1993.
Gutierrez will face Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL player and Obama administration official who represents a Dallas-area seat in Congress, in the Democratic primary. Allred is a prolific fundraiser who raised over $6 million in the second quarter and transferred another $2 million from his House campaign account, according to The Texas Tribune.
The Cruz campaign is seeking to portray both Gutierrez and Allred as too liberal to represent the state.
“We welcome Senator Gutierrez to the race Texans will now get to watch Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez slug it out for who can be the most radical leftist in the state. Meanwhile, Sen. Cruz will continue passionately defending Texas and delivering real results for 30 million Texans,” Cruz campaign spokesperson Nick Maddux said in a news release Monday.