Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker and Democratic congressman, is projected to win Tuesday's Democratic primary runoff in Texas's 33rd Congressional District. Allred defeated Rep. Julie Johnson, who succeeded him in Congress in 2024, to secure the party's nomination for a seat Democrats are all but certain to hold in the November midterm elections.
When Texas Republicans in the state legislature redrew congressional map lines last year, they effectively eliminated Johnson's old 32nd District and moved a large portion of its left-leaning voters into the new 33rd District. The area, which covers parts of Dallas and Tarrant counties and has a heavily Latino population, has been a Democratic stronghold for years.
The race for the newly redrawn 33rd District set up an awkward successor-versus-predecessor dynamic with Allred and Johnson. Allred, a former civil rights attorney who left his prior House seat for a 2024 Senate bid against longtime Republican Sen. John Cornyn that he lost by about 8 percentage points, launched a second campaign for the upper chamber in 2025. He dropped out of that race after Rep. Jasmine Crockett launched a last-minute and unsuccessful bid, saying he wanted to avoid a three-way primary runoff between himself, Crockett, and state Rep. James Talarico, who ultimately won that Democratic primary.
The gloves came off, though, as Allred attacked Johnson with ads that alleged she was profiting from stock in Palantir, a major tech company that assists Immigration and Customs Enforcement with deportations. Johnson recently described Allred as a "flip-flopper" and accused him of abandoning his Democratic values on immigration after voting for two Trump-backed immigration deportation bills during his time in Congress.
Democrats have largely outperformed Republicans in special elections and local races over the past year. In February, former Harris County attorney Christian Menefee won Texas's 18th Congressional District runoff, narrowing House Republicans' majority. In Tarrant County, Air Force veteran and union leader Taylor Rehmet pulled off a notable upset in a state Senate district Trump carried by 17 points in the 2024 presidential election.
