When Colin Allred ‘05 first stepped into the political arena, he had already lived several lives. He’d been an NFL linebacker, a civil rights attorney, and an enthusiastic weekend hiker while studying law at Cal. Allred made national headlines in 2018 when he flipped a long-held Republican congressional seat in North Texas. In office, he built a reputation in Washington as a pragmatic Democrat, one who often honed in on bipartisan issues—infrastructure, veterans’ services, and voting rights. In 2024, Allred set his sights higher, launching a bid to unseat Senator Ted Cruz. Though he ultimately lost the general election, the campaign solidified Allred’s popularity in Texas politics.
Now, Allred is gearing up for another run—this time against Republican Senator John Cornyn. But he says this campaign will be different. He wants to spend more time on the ground connecting with voters and moving away from the ideological divisions between parties. He hopes as a candidate—and eventually, as a senator—to address the day-to-day struggles working people face. Struggles he says he knows well, as the child of a single mom who worked as a public school teacher.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So, you’re running for Senate again. What is different about this race compared to your last one?
In a lot of ways, I think everything’s different. We’re certainly in a different place as a country, and I feel very different. In the last election, I was in Congress and had to spend a lot of time in Washington, D.C. I don’t have that in this election, so I have more time on the ground to do some of the things that I really wanted to do—and what I think we have to do—which is to reach working people.
How do you feel about the challenges of this race?
We’ve been doing town halls all over the state. And what I hear from folks is that they wonder if anybody is actually listening. Does anybody actually care? I look at the Republican primary that’s going on here in Texas. Senator Cornyn, Attorney General Ken Paxton, they’re spending all their time trying to get the attention of one person, and that’s Donald Trump. Everything is geared towards that. None of it’s geared towards representing 30 million people, which is what they’re ultimately trying to do. And I think people feel that.
When I was growing up in Dallas, being raised by a single mom, we weren’t that concerned with the direction of the Democratic Party.
What issues are most important to you and why do you want to be a Senator?
We need to have somebody who will represent all of us. Even if you didn’t vote for me, we could still come together around some shared values. We need somebody who can remind us that we do have some things in common, who can try to repair some of the breaches instead of constantly pulling at the seams in our society.
I think that if you’re working hard and playing by the rules, you should be able to get ahead—and your kids should do better than you did. There should be a constant chance for advancement, a constant chance to better your station. And the truth is, that is going away. But there are key pillars we can put in place in government to give [those] opportunities. Once we do, it’s up to folks whether or not they take advantage of them. But if we don’t give them at all, then I think it’s on us.
What are your thoughts on the redistricting showdown between Texas and California?
I can’t stand gerrymandering. I think it has broken the House of Representatives. I think it’s led us to a place where we have more extreme elected officials who only answer to a small segment of their primary electorate and who have little to no interest in actually trying to govern when they get to Congress. And that’s part of why we are in the place that we’re in right now.
What they’ve done in Texas is not redistricting. This is rigging, and rigging is different. This is an attempt to rig a midterm election. And so that requires a response.
Whatever action we take has to be with the goal of banning this, ultimately. Congress has the ability to prevent this through legislation. I think that it would restore a lot of confidence in Congress.
[For now] we have to fight fire with fire. This gerrymandering of districts is deeply undemocratic. It contributes to cynicism in our democracy, a belief that the elections themselves are rigged. And all of that trickles down into more power for the wealthiest and the well-connected.
What direction do you think the Democratic Party should go?
I think we need to stand for opportunity. When I was growing up in Dallas, being raised by a single mom, we weren’t that concerned with the direction of the Democratic Party. It’s mostly folks who have a lot of time to sit around and think about politics who would even have this conversation. And those are mostly not the folks who we need to reach. What we have to do is get to some of the issues that are animating people. This is a system that’s fundamentally not working. People are working harder for less. Regardless of who the candidate is, I think that’s where we’ve seen people succeed, when they’ve spoken to that. I’m less concerned with ideology. The folks who we have to reach in elections, I think their concerns are not ideological.
I think this is going to go down in history as one of the most repulsive, outrageous acts in the history of the presidency.
You were in the Capitol on January 6th and now Trump has pardoned the majority of the rioters who were later charged and convicted for their actions. How did it feel seeing those people pardoned?
I remember when they said the capital had been breached, that we were not safe, and that they were going to lock down the house floor. We barred the ceremonial doors with furniture that we usually use to hold paper. And I thought I was going to have to hold that door while my colleagues escaped. I texted my wife, “Whatever happens I love you,” and I thought I was sending potentially my last text to her.
So that’s the context I come to the pardoning of these criminals with. I knew a lot of the officers who were hurt that day. I think this is going to go down in history as one of the most repulsive, outrageous acts in the history of the presidency. The pardon power was not intended to be used to pardon people who tried to overthrow the United States government and to prevent the tabulation of the American presidential election. As a country we have to understand the peril that we’re in right now. And when we get out of this, we’re going to have to put in place some really important changes so that we don’t have to peer over this precipice ever again.
Do you think your time at Cal impacted your career, politics and understanding of the world?
My aunt always wanted to go to Cal, but she couldn’t afford it. When I graduated from Baylor and was looking at law schools, she was so insistent that I go to Cal. I honestly didn’t have that strong of an opinion on law schools. I was playing football. I didn’t have a lot of time to visit schools, so I decided to apply to a range of places. And then Cal accepted me. I knew I wanted to do civil rights but I didn’t know what I wanted to do within civil rights. What I got at Cal was the chance to look at all the different areas and look at what was most appealing to me but also where I could have the biggest impact in my state, in Texas.
At the time—and of course this is happening more now—they were passing a lot of laws in Texas to make it more difficult to vote. There’s a line in a Supreme Court case that says basically that the right to vote is preservative of all other rights. If you can vote, you can protect yourself. You can form coalitions. You can elect candidates of your choosing. And I felt really strongly that that’s right. All the other civil rights that I cared about ultimately would come back down to being able to cast your ballot to be a part of your democracy. At Cal I had the opportunity to explore all of that and then to specialize in voting rights.
I also loved hiking. I probably spent more time in Tilden Park than I did on campus. I loved being outdoors. It was really an atmosphere that allowed me to figure out what I wanted to do. I probably would have had a very different experience, maybe even a different career choice, if I hadn’t had the chance to explore what I could contribute to the world of civil rights.
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Grace Benninghoff is a reporter based in Portland, Maine where she covers local government for the Portland Press Herald. She periodically contributes to NPR, Texas Monthly and other publications.
