This week, the influential Cook Political Report shifted Texas’ closely watched Senate race from “likely Republican” win to “lean Republican,” an indication Democratic Rep. Colin Allred’s challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz may be picking up steam.
Perhaps this explains something else some political watchers have picked up on: Are we seeing another side to Cruz? The incumbent senator appears to be doing something of a rebrand – touting his bipartisan bonafides and attempting to shed the hard-line reputation he cultivated during his early years in the Senate.
Politico congressional reporter Daniella Diaz followed Cruz’s campaigning in Texas and spoke with the Standard about the senator’s shift.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: So what appears to be Cruz’s campaign strategy, and has it differed from in the past?
Daniella Diaz: It’s very, very different. I would say what I saw when I was on the campaign trail with Ted Cruz last month – and I’ve also covered his last few races as well, and his presidential campaign, I should add, when he ran for president in 2016 – it was a very different candidate.
He was trying to really push on these bipartisan bills that he has passed and sponsored in Congress. A lot of bills, as he puts it, would bring Texas more jobs. He really stayed away, at least at certain points of the campaign trail in the time I spent with him, from a lot of these culture war topics that we hear a lot from him sometimes during viral moments in Senate committee hearings and kind of what he built his brand on for his first two terms in Congress.
It’s very interesting to see that he’s realizing that Texas is a state that’s changing demographically, very different state than it was the first time he ran, even the second time he ran for Senate and is really trying to change his brand to fit what he thinks will allow him to win a third term in the Senate.
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That brand has largely been firebrand for the GOP and especially the pro-Trump wing of the party. When you mentioned bipartisanship, what sort of examples is he bringing out on the campaign trail?
Well, I was following along the South Texas border with him, and one of the stops included El Paso. And he spoke multiple times about a bill that he passed that had bipartisan support that would bring additional international bridges to Texas, allow for more trade, more jobs. These are the kinds of things we heard from him.
Now, another thing to keep in mind is Ted Cruz has a very high-level position, senior position on Capitol Hill, where he actually is the ranking member of the Commerce Committee in the Senate. And he authored and was part of trying to pass the latest of a reauthorization act, which is essentially everything having to do with airlines, anything having to do with airports. It’s a major bill that passes every five years. And he authored that.
But if you remember correctly, Cruz was actually not part of two major bipartisan bills that Senator John Cornyn actually negotiated and passed, which is interesting. He voted against them, one of them being, of course, the CHIPS Act that would help with chips production in the United States.
And then the other bill being a bill that was bipartisan, that strengthened gun reform in the country that Cornyn actually negotiated. But Cruz voted against both of these bills. And you didn’t hear from him on those bills at all.
And, of course, he completely spoke against the bipartisan bill on border security that was tanked in the Senate. But I should note Cornyn also eventually spoke out against that one as well.
You know, something that we’ve been reporting is how his Democratic challenger, Colin Allred, appears to be tacking a bit to the center himself, that he wasn’t racing to affiliate himself with the Harris presidential candidacy and, in fact, seems to be courting endorsements from other Republicans.
That’s entirely correct. When it comes to the top of the ticket, we’re seeing Ted Cruz really campaigning with Trump in his speeches, trying to associate himself with Trump because Trump is leading, of course, in Texas.
But when it comes to Allred, he told me himself in an interview – actually also on another stop on the border in Brownsville, close to where I’m from in McAllen, Texas – “I don’t need surrogates. I’m actually fine with not having any of the top Democrats in the country coming to Texas and campaigning with me.”
Because he understands that that could possibly hurt him in the state where he’s really trying to seem like more of a red state Democrat, someone who can win the state being a Democrat and being more centrist, saying that he plans to work with Republicans, and he thinks that there’s a space for Republicans in his campaign to support him.
It’s quite a contrast from even what we saw six years ago with Beto O’Rourke.
» MORE: Colin Allred’s Senate campaign strategy is different from previous Dems. It appears to be working.
Well, does it seem to be working for both candidates, this appeal to the center? Who does it seem to be working better for?
Well, you just mentioned that the Cook Political Report has now changed what they see as Texas as lean Republican. It’s pretty notable that that’s the case, that Allred could have a shot. If you’d asked me a year ago if this was one of the campaigns or Senate races that were top of mind, I would have said no.
But after seeing, of course, in another state in northern United States, Montana, where we’re seeing that Democrat incumbent Jon Tester, possibly down eight points against a new candidate, Tim Sheehy, who’s running as a Republican against Tester. Democrats in the top of the ticket are starting to see Texas a little differently.
They’re seeing, you know, at the DSCC, the campaign arm for the Democratic Senate, that they might have a chance in Texas and Allred is gaining more traction and gaining attention nationally across the country, especially post the DNC, where he, of course, had that primetime slot where he spoke and garnered a lot of national attention.
So it’s really interesting to see what is happening in Texas and how the rest of the nation sees it and what could possibly happen ahead of November, where if, you know, you asked Republicans two years ago if they were worried about Ted Cruz’s seat, they would have said absolutely not.
