Political reporters discuss potential outcome of Texas elections at Baker Institute event

With the closely watched U.S. Senate race for Texas between incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred — as well as the state’s influence on the presidential election — Texas is potentially at a major political crossroads. Top Texas political journalists gathered at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy Oct. 8 to analyze the key factors shaping both the Texas U.S. Senate and presidential elections. The experts reviewed Texas’ current political landscape, polling data and strategies employed by both campaigns.

Mark Jones, fellow in political science at the Baker Institute, led a conversation about the current political landscape that Cruz and Allred face in Texas and what the voters want out of candidates with Gromer Jeffers, political writer at The Dallas Morning News; Eleanor Dearman, reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; and Ben Wermund, senior political reporter at the Houston Chronicle.

“If you look at what the candidates are focusing on, Cruz is largely focusing on immigration and border security, and then on the other hand, you have Allred largely focusing on women’s health care and abortion access,” said Dearman. “So I think that’s kind of what their campaigns see, I would presume, is the most important.”

“Allred’s been interesting because he’s talking about things that are not normal campaign issues — they’re specific to Cruz, like Jan. 6,” Wermund added. He explained that a recent Allred rally in Fort Worth focused on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Cruz’s trip to Cancun during the 2021 winter storm and abortion access.

Jones mentioned voter registration efforts in Texas such as Beto O’Rourke’s college tour, an initiative to get young adults registered to vote by coming to them. The registration numbers in Texas have hit an all-time high with the biggest growth in Harris County and along the I-35 corridor, areas that have trended blue in recent elections, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“I think that’s one of the biggest questions of the election,” Jeffers said. “What happens to the newly registered and the new voters? Voter registration in Texas is surging past 18 million. That’s an incredible total based on just where we were a few years ago. The candidate that can connect with those voters — those new voters, those transplants — that will go a long way of deciding the course of not just these races but the course of Texas politics. That’s where I believe you can see the surprise, not the traditional Texas electorate that we’ve analyzed for years, but this electorate that has these, these new numbers, these new voters.”

“There’s so much we don’t know,” Dearman agreed.

Find more local and national election 2024 coverage at the Baker Institute’s Policy Playbook. Sign up to receive a biweekly newsletter featuring the latest briefs in the series here.

Written by Avery Ruxer Franklin for Rice News.