Ted Cruz, Allred projected winners of Senate primary

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred will take on GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in November after winning Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary, NBC News projects. Cruz will race for his third six-year term.

In 2018, Cruz narrowly defeated Beto O'Rourke in the general election but before that, he had no trouble getting past his primary challengers.

In Tuesday's election, Cruz faced Holland Gibson and Rufus Lopez, two challengers without a lot of name recognition, political experience, or campaign material. No websites were found for either of Cruz's Republican opponents.

Cruz won handily on Tuesday, securing nearly 90% of the Republican vote.

On the Democratic side, there was a crowded field of nine candidates led by U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX, Dist. 32), Texas Rep. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio, Dist. 19) and State Rep. Carl Sherman (D-DeSoto, Dist. 109).

Allred avoided a runoff by securing more than 60% of the vote.

"I'm a fourth-generation Texan … and I can't tell you how much it means to me to be your nominee to be the next Senator from the great state of Texas," Allred said.

Allred thanked his longtime supporters Tuesday night for first supporting him in the U.S. House, and now for taking Texas in a new direction by supporting his run for U.S. Senate.

"The fundamental reason that democracy works is that people elect leaders to represent them and their interests, to try to fix things for them, not to look out for themselves. We've had enough of that with Ted Cruz. It's time to go in a different direction," Allred said.

Gutierrez, with 17% of the vote, was Allred's strongest challenger. The state senator from San Antonio represents the Uvalde area and has been an outspoken supporter of new gun laws following the massacre at Robb Elementary that killed 19 students and two teachers and injured 17 others in May 2022.

"I stopped crying about elections a long time ago so you won't see me cry over that spilled milk," Gutierrez said, after conceding the election. "We've got a fight that's still yet to go in this state and we're going to make sure we do that.

Gutierrez said he called Allred and conceded the race, but said there's still a lot of work to do in Texas and the United States.

"I called the congressman to congratulate him and we got to give him that, he worked hard, we've got to give him his due. We called to concede this thing today. But I also asked him to understand how important this issue is in this state and in this nation. So many of you have said that we're just running on gun violence, indeed we are running on so many things that are broken in this state. And yes, the principal reason for my running was these families behind me and their children. I'm telling you right here right now just like I talked to the congressman earlier, we need an assault weapons ban in this country," Gutierrez said.

The rest of the Democratic field included Mark Gonzalez, Robert Hassan, Steve Keough, Heli Prilliman, Thierry Tchenko, and Meri Gomez (no website).

NBC 5's Phil Prazan sat down with Allred, Gutierrez and Sherman in October 2023 to discuss taking on the state's junior senator.

A candidate must get 50% of the vote to avoid the runoff and proceed to the general election. If a candidate does not receive 50% of the vote, the top two candidates will have a runoff on Tuesday, May 28 with the winner moving on to the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 5.