WASHINGTON — With the national political conventions now over, the real campaigning begins up and down the ballot. In the biggest statewide contest in Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, are both hitting the campaign trail and talking up the most important issues for their voters.
On Saturday at a “Women for Allred” rally in Dallas, several Texas women shared their harrowing stories of suffering life-threatening pregnancies, but being denied an abortion because of the state’s abortion restrictions. Texas’ only exception to the procedure is to save the life of the pregnant patient, but abortion rights supporters say the penalties are so severe that doctors delay care.
“I knew that carrying a fetus with a fatal diagnosis was only putting my life in danger,” said Dr. Austin Dennard, an obstetrician-gynecologist who left the state to get an abortion after learning her fetus was not going to develop a skull and brain fully.
“Despite careening towards organ failure, I wasn’t dead enough for Texas,” said another Texas woman, Lauren Miller, who was pregnant with twins and at 12 weeks learned one fetus has a fatal abnormality.
Dennard and Miller are part of a group of Texas women who sued the state seeking more clarifications in the law. At the rally, the women all laid the blame on the state’s Republican leaders.
“The state of Texas wanted me to continue a pregnancy where I would have to wait for my baby to die and put my own health at risk and a future pregnancy at risk,” said Kate Cox, who had a fatal fetal condition and sued Texas to ensure she qualified under the exception. Cox eventually left the state.
It is why they are standing with Allred in his bid to unseat Cruz in November.
“This is a close race. You know what this margin is? This is a margin that you can make happen, that we can make happen,” Allred told supporters.
The Dallas rally highlighted how three years ago the state enacted a six-week abortion ban. Allred also criticized Cruz.
“If you do this to Texas women, if you are singularly responsible in a way that almost no other Texan can claim to be because you put the judges on the court who took this right away, because you helped elect the legislators who passed these laws at the state level, because you called for these laws to be passed, you celebrated when they were passed, then you should lose your job,” Allred told the crowd.
After Dallas, Allred campaigned in Tyler and Marshall over the weekend. Just days earlier, Allred spoke at the main stage of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he backed Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I think Kamala Harris is on a bit of a sugar high,” Cruz told reporters on Friday in Edinburg.
Cruz supported the Supreme Court ending the nationwide right to an abortion and says the issue should be left up to the states. Cruz’s campaign has criticized Allred’s endorsement of Harris and has tried to portray both as too far-left for the big red state of Texas.
“Colin Allred and border czar Kamala Harris are on the exact same page,” Cruz said.
Cruz has also kicked his campaign into high gear over the past few days. His campaign launched what is being dubbed as the “Keep Texas, Texas” tour. On Friday, he made stops in Georgetown, Waco and The Colony. On Saturday, Cruz went to Tyler, Beaumont and Cypress.
During the tour, he touched on the issues of crime, the economy and border security. Days earlier, Cruz earned an endorsement from the National Border Patrol Council.
“It is a humanitarian crisis, it is a public health crisis. It is a public safety crisis, and it is a national security crisis, and I’ll tell you, in the whole history of the country, we have never had an administration do what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have done,” Cruz told the crowd.
“We will secure this border. We will protect our country, and we are going to bring America back,” Cruz continued.
No Democrat has won a statewide office in Texas in 30 years. Polls have put Cruz ahead, but Allred’s campaign appears encouraged following recent poll numbers showing he’s within striking distance.