Cruz challengers distinctly different
Allred has moderate style while Gutierrez sees self as progressive
Over two straight days of rare in-person political clashes, a clear line of division emerged between the leading contenders in the state’s hottest Democratic primary race to take on U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
On both border security and Israel’s war with Hamas, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez exemplified a broader fight in the party over how far left Democrats can go and still be effective even when a Republican majority in Congress and the Texas Legislature often set the agenda.
Allred, a Dallas member of Congress and civil rights attorney, presented himself at separate events in Austin and San Antonio as a bipartisan leader who isn’t afraid to question Joe Biden’s handling of the border. He stopped well short of calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and said he isn’t ready to back “Medicare for All,” an approach to universal health care championed by progressives.
“I’ve shown in my time in Congress that it is possible to work across the aisle — I’m the most bipartisan member of the Texas delegation — while also standing up for my values,” Allred said at a Sunday debate sponsored by the Texas AFL-CIO in Austin.
Gutierrez, an immigration attorney in San Antonio who has been in the Texas Legislature since 2008, used the debate and joint appearance before the San Antonio Expressnews editorial board on Monday to criticize Allred for going too far right in the name of bipartisanship. Gutierrez proudly called himself one of the most progressive members of the Texas Legislature. If sent to Washington, he said he’ll demand comprehensive immigration reform, a cease-fire in Gaza and “Medicare for All.”
The pair’s differences extend from policy into
“We don’t need to have Democrats throwing our president under the bus, as happened here last week. We don’t need to adopt Trump and Cruz’s causes.”
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez
style. Allred said people want their politicians to get things done “instead of being a partisan lightning rod that will continue this divisiveness.”
While he never named Gutierrez directly, it was clear to the San Antonio Democrat that Allred was taking aim at him. Gutierrez acknowledged he tends to upset Republicans, but said he’s still been effective in passing legislation for his district. He pointed to the Texas Senate, where he said he forced Republicans who control the chamber to add a teacher pay raise amendment to one bill, even though it was later stripped out in the Texas House.
“You have to push to the brink,” Gutierrez said in an interview on Monday.
He said Republicans, particularly on immigration, want to talk about the issue but don’t really want to solve it, so there is no compromising on key values.
“We don’t need to have Democrats throwing our president under the bus, as happened here last week,” Gutierrez said. “We don’t need to adopt Trump and Cruz’s causes.”
Gutierrez was referring to a Gop-crafted resolution Allred voted for earlier this month that says Biden’s “open-borders policies” have created a “national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border.” Allred was one of 14 Democrats, three from Texas, who backed the congressional resolution.
Allred defended the vote during the debate and the editorial board meeting as siding with Texas voters, the bulk of whom he said see the border as a problem amid a record number of border crossings last month. Allred said he saw the resolution as asking whether or not members of Congress believe the Biden administration has done enough to address the surge of migrants.
“I’ve been saying for months I don’t think they have,” Allred said. “The White House needed to be much more aggressive on this, and now we are seeing it.”
Allred and Gutierrez are among the nine candidates who have qualified to be on the Democratic primary ballot on March 5, with in-person early voting starting on Feb. 20. Allred has dominated in early fundraising and leads in the few public polls that have been released.
Gutierrez has also emerged as a top challenger due, in part, to his advocacy of the families in Uvalde. Gutierrez has used his statewide campaign to call for gun safety including, banning assault weapons.
Others in the race warn that position is getting too close to what many believe was the downfall of former gubernatorial candidate Beto O’rourke, who said he supported taking away assault-style guns during an earlier presidential campaign.
Candidate Mark Gonzalez, the former Nueces County district attorney, said Democrats can’t win Texas without crossover Republicans and anyone who calls for taking away guns risks losing them.
“Ain’t nobody going to take my guns,” he said at the San Antonio Express-news editorial board meeting on Monday.
State Rep. Carl Sherman, a Democrat and former mayor of Desoto in North Texas, is pitching himself as something between Gutierrez and Allred. Sherman said he isn’t afraid of pushing Democrat values, including when he and other House Democrats fled the state in 2019 to block passage of a GOP bill that would have reduced voting hours and limited polling sites in minority communities. Republicans ultimately passed the legislation, but stripped out those provisions.
At the same time, Sherman said his background in local government makes him attuned to working across the aisle and building relationships with Republicans.
There are no more scheduled debates in the race.
Cruz faces two underfunded GOP opponents in the March 5 primary and is heavily favored to win that contest. In 2018, Cruz won his reelection over O’rourke by less the 3 percentage points, the closest a Democrat has come to winning a statewide seat in Texas since the 1990s.