Former Rep. Colin Allred is ending his U.S. Senate campaign in Texas and instead will attempt a House comeback bid, potentially paving the way for Rep. Jasmine Crockett to enter the race for Democrats' nomination in a state that is critical for the party's long shot hopes to reclaim a Senate majority in next year's midterm elections.

Crockett, a high-profile House member who has sparred with President Donald Trump, is expected to announce her decision on Monday, the final day of qualifying in Texas. Democrats expect she will enter the race for the seat now held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to wrest control from Republicans next November, and Texas, which Republicans have dominated for decades, is part of their ideal path.

Allred said in a statement Monday that he wanted to avoid “a bruising Senate primary and runoff” that could threaten Democrats’ chances in November. He said he would instead run for the House in a newly-drawn district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which he previously represented in Congress before he won the Democrats' Senate nomination in 2024 and lost the general election to Sen. Ted Cruz.

The former congressman did not name Crockett or state Rep. James Talarico, who has launched his Senate bid already, in his explanation. But Allred's decision aligns with Crockett's expected entry into the race. Her campaign has scheduled a “special announcement” in Dallas at 4:30 p.m. CST.

Republicans also expect a hotly contested primary among the incumbent Cornyn, state Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Allred says he wants to avoid a divisive Democratic primary

An internal party battle, Allred said, “would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers.”

Kamau Marshall, a Democratic consultant who has worked for Allred before and worked other campaigns in Texas, said Allred made the right call. But he said Talarico and Crockett both face distinct challenges and added that Democrats have work to do across the nation's second-most populous state.

He said Crockett is a “solid national figure” who has a large social media following and is a frequent presence on cable news. That could be an advantage with Democratic primary voters, Marshall said, but not necessarily afteward.

“It’s going to be a sprint from now until the primary, but in Texas you have to think about to think about the voter base overall in November, too,” Marshall said. “Who can do the work on the ground? After the primary, who can win in the general? ... It's about building complicated coalitions in a big state.”

Talarico, meanwhile, must raise money and build name recognition to make the leap from the Texas House of Representatives to a strong statewide candidate, Marshall said.

A winning Democratic candidate in Texas, Marshall said, would have to energize Black voters, mainly in metro Houston and Dallas, win the kind of diverse suburbs and exurbs like those Allred once represented in Congress, and get enough rural votes, especially among Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley.

Texas Democrats have big gaps to make up

The closest Democrats have come recently to a top-of-the-ticket victory in Texas elections was Beto O'Rourke's challenge of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. O'Rourke campaigned in all 254 counties — a notable feat for Texas Democrats — and got 48.3% of the vote. But that was still a statewide deficit of 215,000 votes. Just four years later, O'Rourke was the gubernatorial nominee and lost to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by more than 880,000 votes, a gap of nearly 11 percentage points. In 2024, Allred lost the Senate general election by nearly 960,000 votes or 8.5 points.

Allred's new House district is part of the new congressional map that Texas' GOP-run Legislature approved earlier this year as part of President Donald Trump's push to redraw House boundaries to Republicans' advantage. It includes some areas that Allred represented in Congress from 2019-2025. Most of the district is currently being represented by Rep. Marc Veasey, but he has planned to run in a new, neighboring district.

A former professional football player and civil rights attorney, Allred was among Democrats star recruits for the 2018 midterms, when the party gained a net of 40 House seats, including multiple suburban and exurban districts in Texas, to win a House majority that redefined Trump's first presidency.

Besides avoiding a free-for-all Senate primary, Marshall said Allred is helping Democrats’ cause by becoming a candidate for another office, and he said that’s a key for the party to have any shot at flipping the state.

“The infrastructure isn’t terrible but it clearly needs improvement,” he said. “Having strong, competitive candidates for every office is part of building that energy and operation. Texas needs strong candidates in House races, for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general — every office — so that voters are hearing from Democrats everywhere.”