Allred’s opponents were a longtime incumbent in 2018 and a businesswoman from a prominent political family in 2020, both of whom were better fits for the district’s less confrontational version of Republicanism. That said, Biden and O’Rourke likely benefited from running against polarizing Republicans in former President Donald Trump and Cruz, respectively - an advantage that Allred didn’t have. (That district, the 32nd, will now be an open seat in 2024.)Ībortion Is Already Tripping Up The 2024 Republican Candidates He won reelection by 6 points in 2020 before redistricting placed him in a new, dark-blue district for 2022. The former NFL player was first elected to Congress in 2018, when he defeated an 11-term incumbent by 7 points in a historically Republican district in the Dallas suburbs. That’s still pretty red, but amid a sea of bad options, it’s possible that Texas will be Democrats’ most promising (or, at a minimum, least hopeless) pickup opportunity in the Senate next year.Īnd in Allred, they now have a serious candidate. And in 2022, Republicans won statewide elections in Florida by an average of 19 points in Texas, they won them by an average of 13 points. In the 2020 presidential race, it was only 3 points redder. In the 2012 presidential race, Texas was 17 points redder than Florida. So why might Texas turn out to be a better bet for Democrats than Florida? Over the last few election cycles, Florida has taken a hard right turn as Texas has been getting bluer. Republican-held Senate seats up for election in 2024 and how their states voted in the 2020 presidential election State Texas may be Democrats’ best Senate pickup option in 2024 And of the 11 Republican-held Senate seats up for election, only Florida and Texas are even remotely vulnerable. There are no Republican-held Senate seats on the ballot in states that President Biden carried in 2020, meaning that Democrats will have to compete in enemy territory if they want to defend against possible losses in states like West Virginia or Montana. The Senate battleground next year is extremely favorable to Republicans. If Democrats want to pick up any Senate seats in 2024, they might have to beat Cruz. But it won’t be easy: Texas is still a Republican-leaning state that will probably require a candidate even stronger than O’Rourke for Democrats to win, and it’s not clear that Allred is that candidate. Democrats are hoping that Allred can finish what O’Rourke started in 2018, when he electrified the Democratic grassroots and came within 3 percentage points of unseating Cruz. Ted Cruz, the conservative firebrand whom liberals love to hate. Last week, Allred announced he was running for U.S. ABC News Photo Illustration, AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, Mariam Zuhaib
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