Secret recording finds Texas Senate hopeful saying only Latino can defeat Ted Cruz

01 February 2024

In Texas' 2018 U.S. Senate race, Democratic former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) shocked Texans by coming within striking distance of incumbent GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. O'Rourke lost, but only by 2 percent — and the fact that he performed that well gave the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hope that statewide races aren't a lost cause for Democrats in Texas.

Now, six years later, Cruz is up for reelection, and Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) is hoping to unseat him in November. But according to the Daily Beast, Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (who is competing with Allred for the Democratic nomination) believes that a Latino would have a better shot against Cruz in the general election.

The Daily Beast's Reese Gorman, in an article published on February 1, reports that in a secret recording made at a campaign event in Houston on January 19, the Latino candidate can be heard saying that "identity politics" would give him a greater advantage than Allred would have as the nominee.

In the recording, which the Beast has obtained a copy of, Gutierrez told an attendee, "I'm telling you, it's not Allred. I mean, it's gonna be a Hispanic candidate, a strong Hispanic. Listen, Rochelle Garza outperformed Beto by 3 points. I outperformed Beto by 3 points."

Allred is Black, while O'Rourke is a non-Latino white who speaks proficient Spanish and has been interviewed en español on the Spanish-language Univision network. Cruz is a white Latino whose father, Raphael Cruz Sr., was born in Cuba.

Gutierrez, in the recording, said of Cruz, "He steals a percentage point because his last name is Cruz." And Gutierrez also told the attendee in Houston that he wasn't being disrespectful to O'Rourke but said, "I'm just trying to tell you that work, hard work, hard work ethic, and yeah, some identity politics."

Gorman explains, "It's true that Texas has a sizable Hispanic population. According to census data, 40.2 percent of the state's population is Hispanic or Latino. But there are also plenty of statewide politicians who have won in Texas without being Hispanic."

Sam Robles, Gutierrez's campaign manager, told the Daily Beast, "Latinos are the biggest ethnic group in Texas. Roland can energize the base and speak to a broad range of voters. Roland Gutierrez has a better chance of taking down Ted Cruz, because Latino ticket splitters, particularly rural men, are interested in a candidate like Roland. Research shows strong Latino candidates routinely outperform the top of the ticket. It's time Texans have an opportunity to vote for a candidate that looks like them, talks like them, and has lived their life."

Allred, however, appears to be on track to win the nomination. An Emerson College poll released on January 18 found Allred leading Gutierrez by 22 percent among Democratic primary voters.

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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