Former U.S. Representative Colin Allred Launches Campaign for Senate in Texas

Allred was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024 - losing to Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.

Former U.S. Representative Colin Allred, a Democrat, will compete for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas for the second time in 2026. This morning, he has jumped into the Democratic primary with a video announcement.

The 2026 Senate cycle will see 35 contested races - 33 regular elections and two special elections. Republicans currently hold 22 of these seats while Democrats represent the remaining 13. So far, seven incumbent Senators have announced their retirements. The Senate seat in Texas is currently held by four-term Republican incumbent John Cornyn.

Allred, 42, previously served Texas’ 32nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 2019 to January 2025. He was the Democratic nominee for the other U.S. Senate seat in Texas last year.

A fourth-generation Texas, Allred received a scholarship to play college football at Baylor University as a linebacker. In 2004 and 2005, he was selected as a first-team Academic All-Big 12. In 2006, he was signed by the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent. He played for four seasons for the Titans between 2007 and 2010.

Retiring after a neck injury, Allred enrolled at the UC Berkeley School of Law. After graduating, he worked for Battleground Texas as its Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Director of Voter Protection. In 2016, he became a special assistant in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of General Counsel. In 2017, he was hired as a civil rights attorney at the law firm Perkins Coie.

In 2018, Allred launched a campaign for the 32nd District against 11-term Republican incumbent Pete Sessions. He led the seven-candidate Democratic primary with 38.5%. He then secured the Democratic nomination by a 69.5-30.5 margin against former Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for Rural Development Lillian Salerno. In the general election, he flipped control of the district with a 52.3-45.7 victory against Sessions as part of the cycle’s Blue Wave. He served for three terms in the U.S. House.

In 2024, Allred sought a promotion to the U.S. Senate by challenging two-term Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. He avoided a runoff in the nine-candidate Democratic primary by obtaining a 58.9% majority. He was viewed as top recruit against a polarizing incumbent. National Democrats have been hoping Texas would flip blue for a long time. Despite heavy investment, Cruz was re-elected by a 53.1-44.6 margin against Allred.

The race for the Senate seat in Texas has already been quite contentious. Cornyn was previously seen as a more favorable and entrenched incumbent. However, all the public polling of the Republican primary to date shows him losing re-nomination against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by double digits. If the GOP nomination goes to Paxton, national Democrats view the race as a flip opportunity once more.

Of course, Allred will first have to make it through a contested Democratic primary for the nomination. Last month, former astronaut Terry Virts launched his own campaign. A trio of other names have been floated as potential candidates: U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, and State Representative James Talarico. Texas Democrats also have to focus on the other statewide contests up in 2026 - including Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General. If all four races recruit solid candidates, that will make each campaign more competitive overall.

Democrats have not won a Senate race in Texas since Lloyd Bentsen was elected to his fourth and final term in 1988. Furthermore, the state has supported the Republican nominee in every presidential election since 1980. During the 2024 contest, Republican Donald Trump carried the state with a 56.1-42.4 victory against Democrat Kamala Harris. Notably, that represented a 8.1% shift to the right from the 2020 presidential election.