Former Rep. Allred is moving from the Texas Senate race to trying to return to the House

Former Rep. Colin Allred is ending his U.S. Senate campaign in Texas and will instead bid to return to the House, which could pave the way for Rep. Jasmine Crockett to become the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in a state considered crucial to the party’s long-term hopes of regaining the Senate majority in next year’s elections.

Crockett will announce on Monday, the final day of qualifying in Texas, whether she will run for the Senate seat now held by Republican John Cornyn. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to wrest control from Republicans next November, and Texas, a state they have long hoped to make more competitive after decades of Republican dominance, is crucial to that path.

Allred said in a statement Monday that he wants to avoid “painful Senate primaries and runoffs” that could threaten Democrats’ chances in the general election. He said he will instead run for the House of Representatives in a newly drawn district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which he previously represented in Congress before winning the Democratic Senate nomination in 2024 and losing the general election to Sen. Ted Cruz.

He did not mention former Congressman Crockett or state Rep. James Tallarico, who has already launched his Senate bid, in his explanation. But Allred’s decision indicates that Crockett will actually enter the competition.

Republicans also expect a hotly contested primary between incumbent John Cornyn, state Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Allred said an internal partisan battle “will prevent the Democratic Party from fighting this critical election united against the danger that Donald Trump and one of his Republican arrogants pose to our communities and our Constitution.”

Allred’s new district is part of a new congressional map approved by the Texas GOP-run Legislature earlier this year as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to redraw House boundaries to favor Republicans. It includes some of the districts Allred represented in Congress from 2019 to 2025. Rep. Mark Veasey currently represents most of the district, but planned to run in a new, adjacent district.

Allred, a former professional football player and civil rights lawyer, was among the Democrats’ star recruits in the 2018 midterm elections, when the party picked up 40 House seats, including several exurban and exurban districts in Texas, to win the House majority that redefined Trump’s first presidency. But those successes did not translate into statewide victories in Texas, where Allred lost to Cruz last November by 8.5 percentage points.