Ted Cruz-Colin Allred Senate debate

DALLAS - With three weeks before Election Day, Republican Senator Ted Cruz and his challenger, Democrat Congressman Colin Allred will meet to debate on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. You will be able to watch the debate live on this page.

This Texas Senate race could help determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Democrats have focused much of their attention on defending seats that are crucial to their thin majority, including Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. However, Texas is viewed as one of the chances to pick up a seat in the Senate this year.

Allred has made the race competitive, but history favors the Republican incumbent.

Colin Allred, Ted Cruz Senate race heating up

Colin Allred and Ted Cruz speak about the key issues in their campaigns as they head into the home stretch of their Senate race.

"It's basically going to come down to whether or not there is a small systematic polling error, because the reality is that, pretty consistently, polls have shown Ted Cruz with a small but steady lead. That's been true for months and so he seems to have the advantage in the race right now," said SMU political scientist Matthew Wilson.

Cruz has urged Republicans to take Texas seriously amid signs that he is in another competitive race. The last time Cruz was on the ballot in 2018, he only narrowly won reelection over challenger Beto O’Rourke.

The debate presents Allred, a three-term congressman from Dallas and former NFL linebacker, with a chance to boost his name identification to a broad Texas audience. Allred has made protecting abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign and has been sharply critical of the state’s abortion ban, which is one of the strictest in the nation. The issue has been a winning one for Democrats, even in red states like Kentucky and Kansas, ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to strip away constitutional protections for abortion.

Cruz, who quickly made a name for himself in the Senate as an uncompromising conservative and ran for president in 2016, has refashioned his campaign to focus on his legislative record. He portrays his opponent as too liberal. Allred has meanwhile sought to flash moderate credentials and has the endorsement of former Republican U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

The two candidates alone have raised close to $100 million, according to the most recent reports from the Federal Election Commission. Tens of millions more dollars have been spent by outside groups, making it one of the most expensive races in the country.

Despite Texas’ reputation as a deep-red state and the Democrats’ 30-year statewide drought, the party has grown increasingly optimistic in recent years that they can win here.

Since former President Barack Obama lost Texas by more than 15 percentage points in 2012, the margins have steadily declined. Former President Donald Trump won by 9 percentage points in 2016, and four years later, won by less than 6. That was the narrowest victory for a Republican presidential candidate in Texas since 1996.

"Texas is a red state," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. "But it’s not a ruby-red state."

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Allred has tried to paint himself as a moderate, while Cruz calls him extreme.

"Turnout will matter, right? Whether Democrats or Republicans are more effective at turning out their base and also whether either side can secure a small number of cross-over voters. And they're both trying very hard to do that. I mean, both of them are really trumpeting their endorsements and support from people on the other side of the aisle," said Wilson. "In a race that's pretty close like this, driving your own base turnout and getting a small number of crossover voters can really make the difference in the outcome."

Ted Cruz-Colin Allred: Where the candidates stand on the issues

Ted Cruz and Colin Allred are locked in a tight race to represent Texas in the United States Senate.

Polls show Allred and Cruz are only separated by a few points.

Here is what you need to know about the candidates and where they stand on the key issues that matter most to Texans, according to a recent poll from the University of Texas at Austin-Texas Politics Project.

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