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Last Updated: Thursday, July 18 at 10:39 AM EDT

Two-term incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz is seeking a third term in office against Democratic Representative Colin Allred, who secured the Democratic nomination in March. Allred aims to become the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in Texas since 1988 and the first Democrat to win any statewide election in Texas since 1994. Texas is generally considered a Republican stronghold, with Republicans controlling both U.S. Senate seats, all statewide offices, both houses of the Texas Legislature, and a large majority in Texas' U.S. House congressional delegation. However, the state has shifted left at the federal level over the last several cycles. Ted Cruz was narrowly re-elected to a second term in 2018 by 2.6% over popular Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke— the closest U.S. Senate race in Texas since 1978. At the presidential level, Trump’s 5.6% margin of victory over Biden in 2020 marked the narrowest margin in Texas in the 21st century, and Biden's 46.5% vote share in 2020 was the highest for a Democrat since 1976. Despite these shifts, this race still heavily favors Cruz, given Texas’s R+5 partisan lean, Biden’s slippage with Hispanic voters, and Cruz’s consistent lead in early polls.