U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas) won the race for Texas' 32nd Congressional District against Republican Genevieve Collins.
At 8:23 p.m., Allred held 53% of the votes while Collins held 45%.
Allred flipped the seat back in 2018 when he defeated Republican Rep. Pete Sessions, who held the seat for 16 years.
In 2020, Republicans ran Genevieve Collins, a former executive at an education technology firm, against the freshman congressman.
Allred played parts of five seasons in the NFL before he earned his law degree and became an attorney. His campaign has focused on health care, a new VA hospital in Garland, the country's new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, and the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"We already were the highest uninsured state in the country, and now it’s gotten worse," Allred said on NBC 5's Lone Star Politics on Oct. 18. "We need to expand Medicaid, expand the ACA, and lower costs across the board."
Collins was a senior vice president of corporate strategy at Istation before announcing her run for Congress. Her grandmother, Calvert Collins, was the first woman elected to the Dallas City Council in 1957 and her great uncle James Collins represented Texas' 3rd Congressional District from 1968-83.
Collins' campaign has highlighted her business background and focused on recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and bringing back the economy. She said the GOP needed to come up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act.
"I'm disappointed it's not going to break our way tonight," Collins said in her concession speech Tuesday night. "But I know that Dallas County deserves a remarkable voice, someone who will stand up for it and someone who will always have a strong backbone and I'll always continue to be that person.
Collins thanked her supporters and said she was looking forward to "the next adventure."
Each candidate grew up in the district and are young by congressional standards -- both are in their 30s.
Live Election Results
Source: AP
The district covers northeastern parts of Dallas County and a small section of southern Collin County.
Allred won the district by 6 1/2 points in 2018. In that same year Democrat Beto O'Rourke carried it by 10 points over U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R), though Cruz won the statewide election.
In 2016, Hilary Clinton won the district over Donald Trump by less than 2 points.
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However, the same year Clinton carried it, Democrats did not run a candidate in the congressional race, and Sessions garnered 71% of the vote. In 2014, when Democrats did oppose Sessions, he won by 26 points.
Mitt Romney won the district by 15 points over Barack Obama eight years ago, John McCain won carried it by 12 points in 2008 and George W. Bush won it by 24 over John Kerry in 2004.
