HOUSTON —  More than a decade after his NFL career ended, Colin Allred still looks as though he could bust through the line and sack a cornered quarterback.

At 41, he’s grown thicker through the middle. But the former linebacker has kept the broad shoulders and barrel chest of his pro football days, a bulk that might help the Dallas congressman bear the weight now pressing down on him.

Facing the loss of two or more seats, Democrats are struggling to maintain their slim control of the U.S. Senate, a fight that could come down to Texas and Allred’s bid to topple one of his party’s archnemeses, Republican Ted Cruz.

It’s a Hail Mary, but not impossible.

In 2018, Cruz barely survived an out-of-nowhere challenge by Beto O’Rourke, a phenom who became a political folk hero with his edgy, adrenalized escapades. After that, Cruz immersed himself chin-deep in Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, then made an appalling escape to Cancun, Mexico, as millions of Texans shivered through a deadly winter storm.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks during a debate with challenger Colin Allred in Dallas.

(Shelby Tauber / Texas Tribune)

His opponent this time is waging a different campaign than O’Rourke. No F-bombs at sweaty rallies. No skateboarding. No livestreaming from the laundromat as he washes his underwear.

Allred’s message is moderation, both tonally and politically. He routinely boasts of being the most bipartisan of Texas’ 40 congressional lawmakers.

“I don’t spend my time throwing bombs,” Allred told several hundred supporters this week at Texas Southern University, drawing a pointed contrast to the theatrically confrontational Cruz. “I work hard not because bipartisanship is the end goal. … That’s how you get things done.”

But if Allred’s approach is different, the challenge he faces is a familiar one.

It’s been 30 years since a Democrat won a statewide election in Texas and while the state is changing politically, the transformation hasn’t been nearly as dramatic as that of other Southwestern states, which have turned purple or even blue in the last 20 years.

Ever hopeful, Democrats point to several differences this election, starting with the incumbent’s off-putting persona. As Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, observed, “Cruz is an acquired taste, even among Republicans.”

The abortion issue, which has particular resonance under Texas’ draconian laws, could attract crossover support for Allred, especially among independents and suburban women.

“An extreme abortion ban is not theoretical to us,” said Lisa Turner, who guides a political action committee promoting Democratic candidates and causes. “This is our new lived experience.”

Finally, Allred’s bid to become Texas’ first Black U.S. senator might, Democrats suggest, spur unprecedented turnout in the state’s sprawling urban areas.

“It’s not pie in the sky,” said Garry Mauro, who served as Texas land commissioner in the ‘80s and ‘90s, back when a Democrat could still win state office. He’s clear-eyed, however, about polling that suggests Allred is within striking distance of Cruz.

“He’s got a real hard road,” Mauro said, “to get that extra couple of points.”

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Everything has to go just right Tuesday for Democrats to keep hold of the Senate.

They have a bare majority, 51 to 49, which includes four independents who caucus with the party. Democrats are certain to lose West Virginia, which puts the balance at 50-50. If Kamala Harris is elected president, then Tim Walz, as vice president, could be the tiebreaker, keeping Democrats in charge.

That assumes, however, that several embattled Democratic incumbents hang on — which is by no means certain. Jon Tester’s chances of winning in Montana appear increasingly remote.

So party strategists are eyeing the odds of seizing a Republican seat or two, to offset any Democratic losses.

One possibility is Nebraska, where political newcomer Dan Osborn is waging a surprisingly strong campaign. But he’s running as an independent and promises to keep his distance from both parties if elected; he explicitly said he will not caucus with Democrats.

That leaves Texas and Allred as possibly the party’s last best hope of keeping Senate control.

Colin Allred faces off with Ted Cruz during their Dallas debate.

(Shelby Tauber / Texas Tribune)

Biracial, Allred was raised by his single mother in North Dallas. He was class president in high school and starred in multiple sports, earning an athletic scholarship to Baylor, where he captained the football team. He played four seasons in the NFL with the Tennessee Titans, until a neck injury forced his retirement in 2010.

With his playing days ended, Allred earned a law degree from UC Berkeley. He worked as an attorney in the Obama administration, at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, then joined a private practice as a civil rights lawyer. In his first run for office, in 2018, Allred topped a crowded Democratic field and, in a surprise, beat an 11-term incumbent Republican to win the seat he’s held ever since.

Bidding now for a second upset, Allred’s Senate campaign is mercifully short on football metaphors. But there’s a bit of locker-room swagger as the beefy ex-jock repeatedly asserts that Cruz is “too small for Texas.”

At Texas Southern, a historically Black university, he cited the senator’s fecklessness during the state’s deadly 2021 winter storm — “when the lights go out in the energy capital of the world, it’s not OK to go to Cancun” — and repeated a story he told in the candidate’s sole debate, about their actions on Jan. 6.

As a mob stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Allred texted his pregnant wife, sent his love, then shucked his suit jacket and squared off to fight. Cruz, who spun up election deniers with his amplification of Trump’s lies, hid in a supply closet. (He said so in a memoir.)

“He shouldn’t have been hurt by the mob. Do not get me wrong,” Allred said, as the crowd inside the theater auditorium jeered. “The issue is there shouldn’t have been a mob. And if your stir up a mob, you should lose your job and shouldn’t be reelected.”

The audience roared.

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock rallied support for fellow Democrat Colin Allred at Texas Southern University in Houston.

(Annie Mulligan / Associated Press)

Mostly, the Senate campaign is a fight for the middle, with each candidate depicting the other as extreme. (It’s less of a stretch for Allred as he takes on one of the Senate’s most assertively partisan members, who’s only lately begun touting his work with Democrats on bridge building, highway construction and other anodyne works.)

Cruz’s campaign has launched a “Crazy Colin” website but, alliteration aside, it hasn’t been an easy sell. Polling last month by the University of Texas in Austin found that 45% of Republicans considered Allred to be extremely liberal, compared with 80% who said that about Harris.

Allred hasn’t exactly embraced his party’s presidential nominee.

When Harris came to town recently for a celebrity-filled rally, Allred delivered a fiery speech on abortion rights, then left the stage before she appeared. Days later, hosting a roundtable on abortion rights, Allred mentioned the “little event here in Houston,” the 30,000 who attended and the presence of Beyoncé, a proud native of the city.

The vice president went unnoted.

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Democrats have an unhappy, hype-filled history of suggesting this is the year they’ll finally break through and end their Texas drought.

In 2002, they fielded a “dream team” of the state’s first Latino nominee for governor, the state’s leading white Democrat for lieutenant governor and a Black candidate for U.S. Senate.

It flopped.

In 2013, state Sen. Wendy Davis electrified partisans nationwide with an overnight filibuster in Austin aimed at blocking anti-abortion legislation. She was unsuccessful, but her political celebrity rocketed Davis to the 2014 gubernatorial nomination and again sent Democratic hopes soaring skyward.

She lost to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by 20 percentage points.

This being a presidential election year, Democrats hope that a higher voter turnout could make up some of the ground that O’Rourke ceded in the 2018 race. After years of writing Texas off, the national party and its allies have notably poured several million dollars into the Senate contest.

There’s reason for Democratic optimism, as the state has grown more competitive.

In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney carried Texas by 16 points. Trump won in 2016 by 9 points and in 2020 by just 5; it was the strongest showing by a Democratic presidential candidate in nearly a quarter of a century.

But this is still Texas, a state where Republicans and conservative-leaning voters typically outnumber Democrats and partisan loyalties tend to run strong.

“One of the great questions about Ted Cruz,” said Jim Henson, who heads the Texas Politics Project and co-directs the University of Texas poll, “is just how deep is his unpopularity?”

The answer could determine which party controls the Senate starting in January.