Former Congressman Colin Allred has announced his campaign to become the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate and challenge incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in 2026.
Allred represented Texas’ 32nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2019 until 2025. Rather than running for re-election to that seat last year, he chose to challenge Sen. Ted Cruz, but lost that race by 9 points. The District 32 seat is now held by Rep. Julie Johnson, the first openly LGBTQ person elected to Congress from a Southern state.
In a video announcing his campaign, Allred said, “Texans are working harder than ever, not getting as much time with their kids, missing those special moments — all to be able to afford less. And the people that we elected to help — politicians like John Cornyn and Ken Paxton — are too corrupt to care about us and too weak to fight for us.”
Paxton, the right-wing Texas attorney general who has made attacking the state’s transgender population a priority of his tenure in office, will be stepping down from that office to challenge Cornyn in the Republican Primary.
— Tammye Nash