CNN
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will win re-election to a third term, CNN predicts, defeating Democratic challenger Colin Allred and denying Democrats one of their best chances to recoup potential losses elsewhere.

The Longhorn State has long been a Republican stronghold, and the GOP has won every statewide election there since 1994. But Democrats have long seen Texas as a potential future battleground given changing demographics, and national party groups have poured millions of dollars into trying to boost Allred's candidacy in the final months of the race.

Allred, a former NFL linebacker who defeated Republican Rep. Pete Sessions to win his House seat in 2018, was considered a serious challenger. He tried to tie Cruz to the state's abortion ban by running ads featuring Kate Cox, who was barred from an abortion by the state Supreme Court after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal genetic disorder.

Allred also went on the offensive on immigration, trying to prove Republicans wrong. He attacked Cruz for voting against the bipartisan border deal and featured statements from Border Patrol agents in his own ads.

But Cruz had beaten strong competition before, narrowly defeating Rep. Beto O'Rourke in a 2018 race in which the Democrat broke Senate fundraising records.

This year he tried to link Allred to the Biden-Harris administration on inflation, the border wall and transgender issues. (The latter attack sparked a backlash from the former football player, who said in an ad, “I don't want boys playing girls' sports or any of that ridiculous stuff Ted Cruz says.”)

Cruz became a lightning rod early in his Senate career when he led a government shutdown to strip then-President Barack Obama of funding for the Affordable Care Act. He was a 2016 presidential candidate and one of Donald Trump's most vocal critics in the Republican primaries. However, he has since sided with the former president, endorsing him ahead of a GOP primary in early 2024 that Trump ultimately won.