Former U.S. Rep. Leads GOP Group Backing Allred Against Cruz

After moving to The Woodlands, former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger  of Illinois expressed frustration with Texas’ junior Senator and now he is leading a group of Republicans supporting Ted Cruz’s challenger U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.

Kinzinger, who served on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said that he doesn’t like the direction the Republican Party is going.

“When I talk to Republicans, I say, ‘Do you like where the GOP is now?’” Kinzinger said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers.

“There are some that do, and they’re going to vote for Ted Cruz,” he said. “But there are a lot that are embarrassed about where the Republican Party is that are holding onto this hope that, ‘Just after November, we’re going to wake up and come back to what we were.’ Well guess what, we’re not going to do that — particularly if Ted Cruz wins again, because he’s part of the reason we’re exactly in this position.”

According to The Houston Chronicle, Kinzinger also criticized Cruz for going from former President Donald Trump’s “nemesis” in the 2016 GOP primary to his “chief supporter” nowadays. He added that Allred wouldn’t be like Cruz in that way.

“If the Democratic Party decided some day to go off the rails, similar to what the GOP did, I guarantee you, he would be like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney, saying this can’t happen,” he said. Cheney has also endorsed Allred, and the number of former and current Republican officials supporting him is growing. 

This growing support comes as political forecasters have shifted the Senate race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.” Cruz has acknowledged the race is tighter than expected and has warned voters he is in danger.

“There have been multiple polls in the last three weeks that show it as a four-point race, a three-point race, a two-point race, and there have been two polls that show it as a one-point race,” Cruz said in an interview with Newsmax, while asking his supporters to donate to his campaign.

Cruz barely survived his last race against former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke with a 2.6 percentage point lead. However, Texas senior senator John Cornyn managed to win his last election by nearly 10 points. Allred said that both senators are fundamentally different.

“I think that he fundamentally does want to get things done,” Allred said of Cornyn. “And I think that Ted Cruz doesn’t.”

“That’s one of the stark divides you’ll see among elected officials is, there are some who are there to try to get things done…and there are others just to get attention for themselves and to tear everything down, and that’s what Ted Cruz has been,” he said.