Colin Allred launches 2026 US Senate bid. Can he win Texas this time?

After losing his U.S. Senate race in November 2024, Colin Allred unplugged. He had just spent more than a year crisscrossing Texas while balancing his job as a three-term congressman in Washington and his young family in Dallas.

His post-defeat stint as a stay-at-home dad was a welcome change of pace for the former NFL linebacker and lawyer. But after seven months away from shaking hands, pleading for votes and fundraising nonstop, Allred felt compelled to reenter the life he thought he had left behind.

Now 42, with the same bull-necked, fireplug physique he showed as a Tennessee Titan 15 years ago, Allred makes no excuses for his 8.5-percentage-point loss to Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. But he’s betting that working-class and swing voters who rejected him two years ago now have a serious case of buyer’s remorse.

"There's a frustration there" among voters, Allred said in an interview Thursday night inside an East Austin Tex-Mex restaurant. He was still wearing the navy apron he had tied on while prepping food and waiting tables, a demonstration of solidarity with Texans living paycheck to paycheck.

Now running in the Democratic primary for the chance to face either incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Allred said voters sent him packing in 2024 after Donald Trump and other Republicans promised to curb inflation, revive U.S. manufacturing and tame the federal bureaucracy.

"Folks were promised that their costs were going to go down, they were promised that inflation was going to go away, they were promised that jobs were going to come back," Allred said. "We've gotten the opposite on everything. Inflation is up, cost of living is up, unemployment is up.

"There were a lot of promises made to them, and they were lied to."

Allred, who announced his comeback in July, returns to a very different political landscape. Last cycle, he was the golden child of Texas Democrats, embraced by the national party establishment and showered with cash. The primary field was crowded with the blunt-spoken state Sen. Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio as his main rival. Cruz buried him 20-1 in fundraising and nearly 4-1 at the ballot box.

Now critics say Allred had his shot and is yesterday’s news. Much of the early spotlight in the 2026 Senate race has shifted to Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, a 36-year-old social media savvy candidate from Austin who draws attention like free beer at a fraternity house.

For his part, Allred is trying to turn adversity into an advantage. If he once came across as too buttoned-up, he now leans into empathy and even a touch of vulnerability — traits uncommon in the tough-it-out culture of sports locker rooms.

"I've had to get more comfortable with telling the stories about what it was like to grow up (in a single-parent household where pennies had to be pinched), because in our family, we generally don't talk about stuff like that," Allred said. "My father, who I'd never known, but I know that he died when I was 10, was an alcoholic. He played college football and, I don't know, possibly suffering from CTE," the degenerative disorder caused by brain trauma.

He recalled how he and his mother lived in the same rent house for 20 years, finally purchasing it with money he earned from playing pro football.

"You shouldn't have to have a son in the NFL to be able to buy a house," Allred said.

One of his main reasons for returning to politics, Allred said, is to bridge the paralyzing polarization that pits American against American and Texan against Texan. If he or another Democrat wins even one statewide race in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1998, the impact would be seismic, he said.

"I think it would fundamentally reshape probably a lot things nationally," Allred said. "But I think we would see an immediate change in every aspect of our politics here at home."