On Monday, Roland Gutierrez, another prominent Democrat running against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas’s US Senate election, officially entered the contest.
San Antonio native and longtime state senator Gutierrez made the news while visiting the Uvalde, Texas, primary school where a shooter massacred 19 kids and two instructors last year.
I’m challenging the structures that have marginalised so many Texans by running for the U.S. Senate. Before leaving us to perish in the blizzard, Ted Cruz already had abandoned Texas. Uvalde happened because Republicans ignored the procedures in this state that are meant to keep us safe,” Gutierrez wrote in a tweet that accompanied an announcement video.
Since the shooting at Robb Elementary School, Gutierrez has worked to ensure justice for the victims by enacting a number of gun control measures, including raising the minimum age to buy assault rifles and abolishing qualified immunity to make it easier to sue police enforcement officials. Neither bill made any forward in this year’s GOP-controlled legislature.
I will harbour my resentment for a very long time. In a passionate statement before the state Senate in May, Gutierrez declared, “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
US Representative Colin Allred, a former NFL player and housing official in the Obama administration, is widely regarded as Gutierrez’s main opponent in the next primary. In 2018, Allred defeated longtime Republican Rep. Pete Sessions in a seat in the Dallas area that had been turning blue. While Sessions has returned to Congress with a district based in Waco, redistricting has given Allred a much safer seat.
After Beto O’Rourke’s surprising and successful challenge against Cruz in 2018, in which O’Rourke broke Senate campaign finance records, Democrats are hoping that Cruz will once again prove vulnerable. Since Democrat Lloyd Bentsen earned a fourth term in the Senate in 1988, this campaign was the Democrats’ best chance at a victory in the state of Texas.
After deciding against a second run for president, Cruz is seeking reelection to the Senate for a third term. Allred’s supporters have already tried to characterise him as anti-gun, but Gutierrez will certainly face the same charge.
Due in part to a Texas statute that forbids state politicians from receiving federal campaign contributions until the end of the state’s legislative session on June 19, Allred gained a jump start on the competition.
The Democratic representative recently reported raising $6.2 million by June 30 for his Senate campaign. Allred, a savvy fundraiser, had over $2 million in the bank to roll over to his Senate race. He announced his candidature in May and boasted that his campaign had raised almost $2 million in its first 36 hours.
