TEXAS — The 2024 election is still more than a year out, but a new poll by the University of Texas at Tyler shows Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with an advantage over his newly announced Democratic challenger, Texas Rep. Colin Allred.

Forty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Cruz and 37% supported Allred. Seven percent indicated “someone else” and 14% responded “don’t know.”

Twenty percent of respondents said they have a very favorable impression of Cruz, 21% said somewhat favorable, 6% indicated neither, 13% said somewhat unfavorable, 36% indicated very unfavorable and 4% said they don’t know enough. Cruz’s favorability was higher among Republicans. Cruz did better among white respondents than Black respondents.

Eight percent of respondents have a very favorable impression of Allred, 13% said somewhat favorable, 12% indicated neither, 10% said somewhat unfavorable, 9% marked very unfavorable and 48% said they don’t know enough about him.

Allred announced his candidacy on May 3. Besides being a frequent critic of Cruz, Allred, 40, is a former NFL linebacker who played for the Tennessee Titans and was a football standout at Baylor University. He later got a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, before taking positions in the administration of former President Barack Obama.

Allred’s announcement marked the first significant challenge to Cruz, who defeated former Democratic representative Beto O’Rourke in 2018 in a tight race.

The UT-Tyler poll sampled 1,413 registered Texas voters on May 10 and 21. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.