“The crisis at our border is just one facet of a broken, polarized immigration system. The crisis in our workforce is another,” reads an op-ed published in the Dallas Morning News last weekend.
The opinion piece, which calls for the expansion of federal work permits to allow undocumented Texans to legally contribute to the state’s economy, was jointly penned by U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and Woody Hunt, a noted GOP donor from El Paso. It’s a partnership that may sound unusual on the surface, but is consistent with the Democratic congressmen’s record that is being spotlighted ahead of November’s election, in which he is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for his seat.
Allred has previously voiced support for a moderate approach to the Southern border. In January, he was one of three Texas Democrats to condemn President Joe Biden’s handling of the border, voting for a resolution that “denounced” the administration’s open-border policies. He is a member of the Democrats for Border Security Task Force, which, in March, voiced support for a significant funding increase for the U.S. Border Patrol. In April, he said he was “frustrated” by the number of migrant crossings occuring daily in the Rio Grande Valley.
While support for stricter border policies has generally been associated with the Republican party, Bethany Albertson, an associate professor in the department of government at The University of Texas at Austin, doesn’t believe Allred is pandering to Republican voters with his border approach. Instead, she believes he is using the issue to “distinguish himself” as a politician able to speak to statewide concerns ahead of an election that is going to be “really tough.”
“For Allred to pull this off, he’s going to need Trump-Allred voters, which is pretty difficult. If we just assume, like everyone is, that Trump is going to win the state, you’re going to need people to turn out for Allred who either vote for Trump or who leave the top of the ticket blank,” Albertson said. “There’s not a lot of voters who do that, so it’s a really heavy lift for Allred.”
Matt Angle is the founder and director of the Lone Star Project, a political research and communications firm that promotes Democratic leaders. After over 20 years in politics, Allred stands out to Angle, even when compared to popular Texas Democrats like Wendy Davis or Beto O’Rourke, because Angle “can’t find a naysayer.” While some polls are showing Cruz with as much as a 13-point lead over Allred, Angle said he thinks “Cruz is in a cold sweat panic.”
“I think there are going to be a lot of people who skip the Presidential race. They can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden but they don’t accept Trump, but they will vote for Colin (Allred) over Cruz,” Angle said.
A spokesperson for the Ted Cruz campaign rebuffed Allred being labeled a bipartisan politician. His “record speaks for itself,” a statement made to the Observer said, citing Allred’s professional relationship with the former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and his labeling of the border wall as “racist.” (The later comment has inspired a six-figure Allred attack ad, paid for by a pro-Ted Cruz PAC.)
“(Allred’s) recent rhetoric doesn't change who he is: A radical leftist who is out of step with Texas,” the Cruz campaign said.
To Ban or Not to Ban (TikTok), That Is The Question
Allred generally posts to the social media app TikTok once or twice a day. Some videos show the congressmen speaking in news interviews or sitting down to address the camera directly. Some videos are well-timed for current memes and trends going viral on the platform. Other clips attack Cruz.
But despite Allred’s finesse with the app, he voted in favor of the bipartisan bill that will require TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to divest from the app in order to remain operating in the U.S. The vote passed 360-58 in March, after supporters of the bill voiced national security concerns due to the company’s relationship with China.
Allred’s vote has drawn some criticism because of his continued affinity for the app, but Albertson said the vote was so overwhelmingly in favor of the bill she would have been “more surprised if he voted against it.”
“This was a bill that had bipartisan support. Biden said he was going to vote for it, it had foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel tied up in it,” Albertson said. “It is weird to say [the app ] is a national security risk while using it, but on the flip side, he’s got to appeal to younger voters. The Biden campaign is having difficulty with younger voters, and from that perspective, reaching young people on social media platforms where they are makes sense.”
Allred, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the app must be free of "harmful and malicious influence of the Chinese Communist Party" in a statement after the bill was signed. A report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shortly before the divestment vote found evidence of the Chinese government using the app to promote pro-China narratives, and warned of the potential for outside governments to use the app to influence the November election.
“The threat from our foreign adversaries is very real. When you have such an influential app controlled by the Communist Chinese party it's a problem for us. It’s a national security problem for us," Allred told FOX4 reporter Steven Dial after the vote. "We’ve done this in other areas of our economy, where when there’s a foreign ownership of a key piece of our economy we force them to divest. That’s exactly what we are doing here, so it’s not without precedent.”
