CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — U.S. Congressman Colin Allred was one of the featured speakers at the Coastal Bend Labor Council's annual Labor Day breakfast Monday.
The former NFL linebacker said he believes he can get the votes to win the 2024 election and take that senate seat.
"I am Colin Allred, and I'm going to beat Ted Cruz,” he announced confidently Monday morning.
The crowd inside The Valencia Events Center went wild after hearing Allred’s vow.
"We can't afford six more years of Ted Cruz,” he said. “Of him ignoring Texans; him abandoning us in a crisis; and him pitting us against each other. I have a very different record in Congress. I was literally just named recently, the most bipartisan member of the Texas delegation."
The three-term Dallas congressman and former Tennessee Titans player was a big hit, shaking hands and posing for pictures with everyone who wanted a little politics mixed in with their Labor Day celebration.
"Running against an incumbent is always very difficult, and particularly in a race like this, that there’s such hypersensitivity,” said Corpus Christi City Councilman Roland Barrera. “But, obviously, he's got the passion, he's got the excitement."
Cruz was in Corpus Christi recently to meet with farmers and ranchers about what they want to see in the new farm bill.
"You talk about the spirit of who Texas is, it's those farmers and ranchers that make our state who we are," he told the group.
Allred said he was given very little chance to unseat a longtime republican when he won his first term in Congress, and believes he will be able to do it again if he comes out of the Democratic primary as his party's candidate.