Advertisement
This is member-exclusive content
icon/ui/info filled

newsPolitics

What to know about Dallas’ Colin Allred, who’s challenging Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate

Raised by a single mother and blessed with athletic skills, Allred turned an attraction to public service into political stardom.

Update:
5:22 p.m. Oct. 15, 2024: This story was originally published in May 2023.

Colin Allred’s life has been a series of challenges.

The Dallas-born Democrat was raised by a single mother, Judith Allred. At one point, he moved from Oak Lawn to Far North Dallas with his aunt and uncle, Tess and Jim Stewart, to attend better schools.

Advertisement

He’s biracial. His mother is white and his father is Black. As a kid, he had to maneuver life in two different worlds. He’s said that he’s grateful for the people that helped him along the way.

Political Points

Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.

Or with:

“It definitely took a village to raise me,” Allred told The Dallas Morning News in 2018 as he drove around his old neighborhood. “It took a lot of people in my life, people who did more than what their normal range of duties were. They looked out for me.”

Soft-spoken and usually the biggest person in the room, Allred has focused his life on family, big-time athletics, academics and politics.

Advertisement

Here are some other facts about his background and road to politics as he faces off Tuesday night in a debate against Sen. Ted Cruz hosted by WFAA-TV (Channel 8).

Books and ballgames

Allred likes to read.

Advertisement

He liked C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower books as a kid and dreamed of playing for the Texas Rangers.

As a teen, he became a football standout at Hillcrest High School, though baseball was his favorite sport.

“That was my first love. I played center field, batted cleanup and never got cheated on a pitch,” Allred told The News. “The problem was I couldn’t hit the curve.”

Allred was also Hillcrest High School’s senior class president.

Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, throws a football at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. Allred visited the...
Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, throws a football at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. Allred visited the base as part of a week-long trip to visit soldiers in Kuwait and Afghanistan from Nov. 25 to Dec. 1.(House Veterans Affairs Committee)

After high school, he attended Baylor University, where he starred as a linebacker. He later attended law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

Undrafted, Allred was signed by the Tennessee Titans. In his fifth season, he suffered a career-ending neck injury during a game against the Dallas Cowboys, with his mother, aunt and uncle in the AT&T stands.

After football, Allred attended law school and then became a civil rights attorney.

Advertisement

Politics and public service

In 2014, he was a voter-protection lawyer for the Democratic group Battleground Texas and for former state Sen. Wendy Davis’ unsuccessful campaign for governor against Republican Greg Abbott.

Later he served under then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro when Barack Obama was president.

Largely unknown, Allred turned his attention to his own political candidacy.

Advertisement

He beat longtime Rep. Pete Sessions in 2018 to win the Republican-leaning District 32, which includes northern Dallas and Richardson. In 2020. he beat Republican Genevieve Collins to win reelection. Two years later he won his third congressional term in the district that Texas lawmakers revamped to favor a Democratic Party candidate.

Congressional record

His first effort in the Capitol was to protect insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions outlined in the Affordable Care Act, a promise he made on the campaign trail.

He then led the drive to bring the VA Medical Center to Garland. Building on that, , he pushed a bipartisan bill that was signed into law authorizing construction of the Dallas VA Medical Center Spinal Cord Injury Center as well as a new veterans medical center in El Paso.

Advertisement

In February 2023, Allred’s office announced that Prairie View A&M University will receive a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to create a national University Transportation Center. He says that as a member of the Transportation Committee, he helped lead the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will bring $35 billion to Texas, including hundreds of millions committed for EV charging, airport improvements, mass transit, broadband and road and bridge repair.

Allred’s campaign said he secured $20 million in funding for community projects across North Texas. And he voted to cap insulin costs at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare and allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices.

He voted with Sen. John Cornyn for bipartisan gun safety reform in the wake of Uvalde. According to Roll Call, Allred in 2021 requested $241 million in earmarks, more than any other member in Congress. Much of that was for projects at DFW International Airport. The projects are in partnership with Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving.

He was a supporter of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and twice voted to impeach Donald Trump.

Advertisement

Allred married Alexandra Eber on March 25, 2017. They have two sons, born in 2019 and 2021.

Related Stories
View More