The rumors of a Beyonce performance on the final night of the Democratic National Convention turned out not to be true (How could you do this to us, TMZ? We trusted you.) allowing Colin Allred and the Chicks, who sang the national anthem, to remain the most prominent Texans to step onto the Chicago stage last night.
If you blinked, you may have missed Allred, though.
The Senate hopeful took the stage for two-and-a-half minutes to introduce himself as the guy who is going to defeat incumbent Ted Cruz and turn a Texas Senate seat blue. Policy talk was light. Lowering costs, protecting reproductive freedom, securing the border and protecting Medicare and Social Security each got a line in the speech.
Allred also referenced his time as a football player, and compared former President Donald Trump and Cruz to the “Me Guys” of the team — guys who “talk a big game” and “only care about themselves.” Then, he took a moment to emphasize the importance of the word “We.”
“As President Obama said, 'The single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word 'We.' We The People.' 'We Shall Overcome.' 'Yes We Can,’” Allred said. “We’ve got a message for the me-guys. ‘We’ is more powerful than 'me'.”
While Allred referenced the “Yes we can,” slogan of Obama’s 2008 campaign, he left out the refrain that energized this year’s convention, which also includes a “We”: Vice President Kamala Harris’ “We’re not going back.”
Allred started and ended his speech by calling Harris the next president of the United States, but that was standard kudos. On social media, Texas Democrats have begun to murmur about Allred’s trepidation when it comes to supporting the fresh nominee, who he seems determined to keep at an arm's length. After Joe Biden's campaign came to an end, Allred did not endorse the vice president on social media; he has not joined her on the campaign trail during any of her recent Texas stops; he’s been openly critical of the Biden and Harris administration’s handling of the border.
Colin Allred is running one of the least inspiring & lackluster campaigns I’ve seen in recent memory. Truly bizarre stuff.
— Meebs Aslam (@itsMeebs) August 21, 2024
At a time when enthusiasm amongst the party is at a fever pitch, some have deemed his campaign — which stresses the need to beat Cruz and highlights Allred’s bipartisan record — lackluster. Jen Ramos, a delegate and representative on the State Democratic Executive Committee, feels Allred’s positioning as a middle man has been a roundabout way of “disavowing” the party.
“I think [the DNC speech] is his attempt to try to have his cake and eat it too,” Ramos told the Observer. “It's an insult to the hard-working Democrats that are in really difficult areas to organize, in areas where there are high concentrations of Trump voters. These are the things that we deal with on a regular basis, and to see someone who has this national platform and this privilege disavow that is really insulting.”
Polling released yesterday does show Allred is ticking upwards among Texas voters. The University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs latest survey showed Cruz up by only 2 points against Allred, within the margin of error. Cruz’s most recent reelection in 2018, which resulted in the defeat of Beto O’Rourke, was won by 2.6%.
The same poll showed Harris is twice as favorable in Texas as Biden was against Trump, who now leads the state by only 5 points. Across the country, the “Harris Effect” is appearing to positively boost Democrats’ chances in House and Senate races in battleground states; politically minded experts are anticipating the enthusiasm for Harris resulting in trickle-down voting on the ballot.
Even if Harris is showing gains in Texas, Ramos wants to see Allred ramp up his campaign even further.
“Colin is leaving so much on the table by not even attempting to meet with grassroots [campaigners],” Ramos said. “Regardless of how my feelings are about the congressman, I'm still going to vote for the Democratic nominee. But he has not earned any of my will to do any organizing … Unless he actually goes out to reach voters where it's at, I don't know if that's going to make a difference, and I would like to see him do better.”
Oh, he remembered he’s a Texas Democrat now that there’s a camera around! https://t.co/FvK649YbK0
— Jen Ramos ➡️ #DNC2024 (@itsJenRamos) August 21, 2024
A Word From Delegate Paula Blackmon
We've been checking in with Dallas City Council Member Paula Blackmon over the course of the convention, during which time she's been serving as one of Texas' 32 PLEO, or “party leaders and elected officials," delegates. It was her first convention, which felt "more like a concert" thanks to the nonstop buzzing energy.Wednesday's keynote speech by vice presidential nominee Tim Walz left Blackmon emotional. Walz has been a proponent of IVF fertility treatments. (The couple corrected reports that he and his wife, Gwen, used IVF while trying to get pregnant with their children, Hope and Gus. They employed a method known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI, that doesn’t risk destroying unused embryos.) Overcome with emotion, Gus Walz stood and cheered for his father during the speech, saying "That's my dad."
"I don't know how, being a parent, you don't get emotional at that," Blackmon told the Observer. "It was so sweet and so endearing, and it was very touching. You could tell they're just a sweet little family."
Blackmon said Allred's speech left the Texas delegation "excited" to rally against Ted Cruz.
"I'm proud that he is my congressman, and I'll be voting for him in November," she added.
Blackmon went into the convention feeling optimistic about the Democratic Party, and she's leaving feeling sure that Democrats are back to competing on key issues and in key elections.
"We're not letting any party, anybody dominate the rhetoric anymore. We are patriotic, we are going to take on gun violence. We are going to take on climate change," Blackmon said. "That's what I got out of [the convention.] I think Democrats can compete. For a while there, I just felt like the oxygen in the room was being sucked out by the Republican party, but last night I just felt, that Democrats can compete with anybody whose running on a Republican ticket."
