Sign up for the We the Texans newsletter to receive twice-monthly updates on our year-long initiative dedicated to boosting civic engagement and chronicling how democracy is experienced in Texas.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz spent the final weekend of his reelection bid campaigning in El Paso and McAllen, taking his statewide tour to two of Texas’ metro areas with the biggest concentrations of Latino voters as he looks to bolster his support among one of the state’s key voting blocs.

The two border cities served as fitting backdrops for Cruz to take on an issue at the heart of his campaign: immigration.

“I recognize coming to El Paso and telling you about the border is a little bit like going to Noah and telling you about the flood — you know!” Cruz said at a Sunday afternoon rally at a jet terminal in east El Paso. “It is the worst invasion in our nation’s history.”

Hours later, at a McAllen burger restaurant, Cruz accused his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, of backing what he described as the Biden administration’s “open borders” policies. But he also hit Allred for taking votes that ran counter to the state’s oil and gas industry and the natural gas fracking it relies on.

“I have spent 12 years as the leading defender of oil and gas in the United States Senate,” Cruz told a packed crowd at University Draft House in downtown McAllen, where he was joined by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.

Meanwhile, Allred used his final days on the campaign trail to mobilize support in his hometown of Dallas, one of several Democratic strongholds where he will need to maximize turnout to become the first Democrat in 30 years to win a statewide election in Texas.

Making his final pitch to voters at a packed rally at the Kessler Theater in Dallas’ bohemian Bishop Arts District, Allred cast Cruz as a self-centered, underperforming lawmaker who puts his personal ambitions ahead of legislating.

“You don't have to spend all of your time pitting folks against each other,” Allred said. “That's my biggest issue with Ted Cruz. It’s that he spent 12 years not trying to serve us, but 12 years getting attention for himself and finding the seams in our society and pulling them apart for his own benefit.”

Both candidates are making their closing arguments at the culmination of a competitive and expensive race which could decide control of the U.S. Senate and shape the next several years of Texas politics, as Allred looks to score an earth-shattering upset and Cruz aims for a decisive win that could dispel talk of Texas going blue.

For Cruz, the weekend stops in El Paso and McAllen — cities where more than 80% of residents are Hispanic — were a sign of Texas Republicans’ increasingly assertive efforts to court one of the state’s fastest growing and most politically fluid voting blocs. Over the last two elections, GOP candidates have made historic gains among Latino voters around the state, especially in South Texas, where Republicans have blasted Democrats’ policies on immigration and oil and gas and appealed to the large swath of the electorate that leans conservative on social issues from abortion to LGBTQ rights.

At his McAllen stop, Cruz painted Allred as an extremist who was out of step with Texans on transgender rights. He reprised an attack that has featured heavily in his campaign’s ads in the closing weeks, accusing Allred of supporting legislation that would allow men to use women’s restrooms and boys to play in girls’ sports.

“This is no longer a battle between Republican and Democrat, this is no longer a battle between conservative and liberal. This is a battle between sane and crazy,” Cruz said. “We're dealing with a world where one of our two major political parties can no longer figure out what is a woman.”

Allred has characterized the attacks as a “Hail Mary” and “desperate,” and explained that his support for transgender rights is rooted in his belief that “folks should not be discriminated against.” He has also pushed back against Cruz’s assertion that he would pose a threat to energy jobs in the Senate, seeking to reassure workers in the oil and gas sector that he would protect their line of work.

Latino voters have long favored Democrats by comfortable margins in Texas, with exit polls measuring Democratic presidential nominees Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton winning the Latino vote by margins approaching 30 percentage points. But in 2020, President Joe Biden won the statewide Latino vote by only 17 points, while a handful of South Texas counties shifted dramatically toward former President Donald Trump, shedding their decades-old status as Democratic bastions.

Alvaro Corral, a political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said it was wise for Cruz to spend time in South Texas during the campaign’s final leg because the region has become more of a battleground where he can find persuadable voters. He said the Rio Grande Valley is increasingly turning into one of the state’s most competitive areas.

“Both campaigns see it as a place where they can win votes,” he said. “It’s as close to neutral ground as you can get.”

Cruz also campaigned last week in Jourdanton, a small town south of San Antonio in rural Atascosa County, a 66% Hispanic county where Trump won about two-thirds of the vote in 2020.

Allred has also tried to shore up his support among Latino voters down the homestretch, visiting the Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday last week with stops in Edinburg and McAllen, capped by an evening rally in Alamo with fellow U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, state Sen. Morgan LaMantia, and Democratic congressional candidate Michelle Vallejo.

He also launched a recent Spanish language TV ad that argues Cruz would jeopardize Social Security and Medicare benefits by working to raise the retirement age to qualify for benefits.

Most recent polls have shown Allred leading among Latino likely voters, though generally by a slimmer margin than 2018 Democratic nominee Beto O’Rourke, who came within 3 points of unseating Cruz. However, the polling has been all over the map.

Cruz’s apparent improvement among Latino voters may partly stem from Trump’s increasingly strong standing among Latinos in Texas. In 2020, the then-Republican president logged historic gains in several predominantly Latino South Texas counties long dominated by Democrats, while Latino voters in urban and suburban areas also shifted right. Some polls have shown Latino voters breaking for Trump at a record clip this cycle in Texas.

Wayne Hamilton, executive director of Project Red TX, which has focused on making Republican inroads in heavily Latino South Texas since 2018, said voters in the area have responded to the GOP’s conservative message on immigration and the economy.

“South Texas is conservative,” said Hamilton, who ran Gov. Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign in 2014. “We’ve seen the Hispanic community is not a monolith like Democrats like to portray them… As a result, the South Texas community is trending more toward Republicanism.”

Hamilton said Cruz was right to focus on the economy and the number of energy jobs Republican policies have brought to the region — jobs which he argued could be imperiled if Democratic policies toward green energy take hold.

But immigration is also a top issue in the region and Cruz, who was endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, stumped about Republican plans to stem the number of migrants crossing the southern border.

Corral, the political science professor, agreed that immigration is a top concern but said Republicans have to tread carefully on the issue lest they turn off voters who are sympathetic to migrants attempting to cross the southern border.

“It’s probably wise to put the more ethnic, race-baiting language that’s controversial aside,” he said.

Allred concentrates on abortion

In the closing days, Allred has focused more than anything on Texas’ abortion ban and his commitment to restoring access to the procedure that was available before the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Allred blamed Cruz for Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, saying Cruz’s work getting more conservative judges on the federal judiciary contributed to the decision ending the constitutional right to abortion. Allred evoked the deaths of Nevaeh Crain and Josseli Barnica, two Texas women who died because they could not terminate their nonviable pregnancies. Over 100 Texas OB-GYNs signed a letter Sunday saying both women would be alive if it weren’t for the state’s abortion restrictions, which have been challenged in court unsuccessfully by women who say the language outlining the only exception — when the life of the mother is at risk — is not clear enough.

"Can you imagine going to one emergency room, being turned away, going to another, being turned away, and going to a third, where you're starting to have organ failure, you're finally admitted to the ICU, but it's too late. This is happening in our state," Allred said, blaming Cruz for “taking away a fundamental right from Texas women and putting them in these dangerous positions.”

Cruz has carefully avoided opining on the state’s abortion ban, saying that the legislation and any future abortion policy decisions are the responsibility of state lawmakers. He has supported restricting abortion in the past.

Allred also blamed Cruz for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol through his objection to certifying Arizona’s presidential election results. Allred said he would be the candidate to defend democracy, putting the claim in visceral terms as he described preparing to physically fight the mob as they approached the House chamber.

“You know, I went to DISD. If it's going to go down, it’s going to go down,” Alred said. “At the same time, after he’d been lying about the election, when that mob came, Ted Cruz was hiding in a supply closet.”

Allred also emphasized his moderate stances, which have formed a core tenet of his campaign. He said he would be open to working with the other party, and quoted the late Rep. John Lewis, saying, "We might have come here on different ships but we're in the same boat now. We're all Americans. We're all Texans, and I'll remind us of that."

"We're gonna make sure we lower your costs from your child care to your housings, your education costs, that we're investing in the middle class from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down," Allred said.

Saturday’s rally was the last of Allred’s campaign, delivered in his hometown to an audience of roughly 500 supporters. It was a retread of the biggest points Allred has made throughout the campaign, which has gone more on the offense against Cruz than former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 challenge.

The audience was full of supporters who had already voted but urged each other to use the remaining few days before Election Day to phone bank and block walk for Allred. Allred was joined on stage by his wife, Aly Eber; state Rep. Jessica Gonzalez; and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

The Texas Tribune answering reader questions about 2024 elections. To share your question or feedback with us, you can fill out this form.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/04/ted-cruz-colin-allred-texas-senate/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.