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Colin Allred has full football Stadium hung on his every word.

It’s a Friday night under the lights here in Houston and the energetic crowd takes a break from what feels like a giant block party to hear from a number of health care providers and families who have used these doctors and nurses for abortions. Soon Willie Nelson, Beyonce and Kamala Harris (technically the headliner) will take turns on stage. But for these ten minutes, the stadium focuses on Allred, a former NFL linebacker turned member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is fighting to unseat the senator. Ted Cruz, and it’s like watching a rock star at his peak – because this could be the high point for Allred’s political career.

“Everything is bigger in Texas. But Ted Cruz is too small for Texas,” Allred said to deafening cheers.

That very talent is why Democrats have gained hope that they might be able to deny Cruz a third term next week. To be clear: Texas is a challenge for the party. Texans have not elected a Democrat to statewide office in 30 years. But Allred, a third-term House representative from Dallas, has overtaken Cruz in fundraising and captured enthusiasm from both Texas Democrats and outside groups at a pace that would have been unthinkable just six months ago. FiveThirtyEight’s polling average puts Cruz ahead by just three points, which is within the margin of error – but not a single projection from the quants there has ever shown Allred ahead.

Still, Republicans are clearly nervous about Texas. In a sign of how serious they are taking Allred’s prospects, Trump sent his plane to Austin on Friday, the same day Harris received Beyoncé’s public endorsement. There was a Cruz, hat in hand, grinning through gritted teeth, next to a man who once baselessly accused Cruz’s father of playing a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and disparaged his wife’s appearance.

“I couldn’t ask for a better summary of this campaign than Allred and Harris arm in arm as President Trump and I stand together,” Cruz said at that private airfield. “That’s the clear choice of Texans, that’s the clear choice of Americans.”

In addition to Trump’s coattails, Cruz is also counting on strong support from rural parts of Texas, which remain deep red and more comfortable than the state’s fast-growing urban areas with the strict abortion restrictions that Harris’ campaign and Beyoncé led the rally to highlight . In addition, Cruz’s allies are running an ad saying that Allred wants to allow transgender student-athletes to participate in girls’ sports, giving them an unfair advantage. (Fact checkers have debunked this, a school district in Oregon has asked Cruz to stop running ads featuring cisgender athletes, and Allred is running his own ad to distance himself from the allegations.) Cruz himself also likes to cruise the state as he leads his first election campaign, although he certainly wishes he could have that blank slate again.

Since entering the Senate with a 16-point victory after the 2012 election, Cruz has been something of a creature all his own in the upper chamber. He is a proud nuisance to Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the national party and has made several missteps that misread the modern GOP. During his bid for the White House in 2016, he was the last person standing between Trump and his first presidential bid. His initial refusal to bend the knee – he even tried to incite a last-minute coup with a protest speech from the stage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland – landed him in the MAGA column for disloyalty. (A few weeks later, he endorsed Trump.)

Cruz ended up being among those who gave in to Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. This campaign culminated on January 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the Capitol.

“I know many of you probably know where you were on January 6th. I know where I was. I was on the House floor doing my job,” Allred said. “I texted my wife Aly, who was seven months pregnant with our son Cameron, ‘Whatever happens, I love you.’ Because when you’re the only former NFL linebacker in the room and there’s a mob at the door, everyone thinks: What are you going to do, Colin?”

After telling the adoring audience that he was taking off his suit jacket and letting muscle memory come into play should the barricaded doors break open, Allred delivered the blow: “Ted Cruz was hiding in a supply closet. That’s okay, that’s okay. I don’t want him to get hurt by the crowd. The point is there shouldn’t be a mob.”

Then there’s Cancun, Cruz’s ultimate misstep. When a freak winter storm left millions of Texans without supplies for days and killed scores, Cruz and his family booked tickets to Mexico. It was a move that hasn’t faded in the minds of many Texans, and Allred knows it.

“Can you imagine having the privilege and responsibility of representing our great state when a crisis hits our state, do you think? I have to check out the Ritz Carlton in Cancun? You wouldn’t do it. If you do it and run for office again, you’ll lose your job.” Allred said at the campaign rally that the crowd chanted “Lose Your Job.”

Not that the crowd needed much reminding.

“There are enough people who are tired of Cancun Cruz,” said Michael Juge, a 51-year-old government intelligence analyst. Juge, who makes his home in Houston, cited Cruz’s trip south even before Allred appeared on the scene, pointing to the slow progress Democrats have made in Texas in recent cycles. “The big metropolises are not like the rest of the state,” he says as he stands at the security fence at the Harris-Beyoncé-Allred party on Friday evening.

Or as 44-year-old realtor Monica Vega, wearing a Harris Walz camouflage hat, half-joked: “We don’t all ride. We don’t all live in a bind.”

Still, this Is Texas.

“I’m optimistic about Colin Allred. “His chances are good,” says Juge. “If he can win this, that makes Texas a swing state for 2028.”

Many made similar predictions six years ago when Beto O’Rourke caught fire, only to lose to Cruz by three points. Allred tapped into that same anti-Cruz sentiment well enough to raise enough money to run a competitive race. This is no small matter, especially in Texas.

“We’re three times the size of Michigan, okay? We have more people in this city than in all of Arizona, right?” Allred tells me the morning after his rally. “This is an incredibly expensive state. I don’t think people understand the magnitude of Texas.”

This Saturday morning we are in an office complex not far from Rice University. About three dozen volunteers have gathered in the lobby to hear from Allred and Houston-based Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, whose office is the home base for these local activists knocking on doors over the next two hours. Their targets are mostly people who they believe would vote for Democrats if they only voted. So they’re getting a little nudge from their neighbors to do their part in a state that’s constantly a white whale for liberals.

“You always assume it will happen one day, but it takes work,” Fletcher tells me as I stand here on the sidewalk in front of their outpost. Still, you can’t shake the feeling that this has been the case for a very long time. “That’s what you see with Colin Allred. He worked very hard and did everything he had to do to win. So it’s our job to make sure we support him and get him out.”

This operation, as in Texas before it, is very impressive, both for its seriousness and for the political machine behind it. But strong headwinds are also gradually emerging. Trump is well ahead of Harris in the polls in the state, but Allred argues that all she really needs is for voters in Texas’ urban areas to be larger than in the past.

“We can win the election here,” Allred tells the crowd just outside the door. “I’m not kidding. Not only Harris County, but Houston Metro can win this election on its own.”

It is a difficult task and a narrow path, but not an impossible one. That’s why Democrats are storming into the state and Cruz is campaigning like he’s never had to before, even if that means relying on the MAGA movement as a buffer. And that’s why Democrats believe Texas could be the reason they stay in the Senate.

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