Last Friday evening, more than 20,000 attendees packed a stadium in downtown Houston for a Kamala Harris campaign rally featuring perhaps the Bayou City’s most famous emissary, Beyoncé, who delivered an endorsement (though not a performance) for the vice president. A Democratic presidential hopeful hadn’t stumped in the Lone Star State this deep into the election since Bill Clinton in 1992. The event was meant to give a national stage to the specter of Donald Trump-fueled abortion bans like those in Texas.
It also gave Colin Allred perhaps the most high-profile moment of his campaign. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, who’s made government encroachment on reproductive rights a centerpiece of his campaign, got a marquee speaking slot to deliver his case for ousting two-term Republican Senator Ted Cruz to an amped-up crowd of voters in a city that is key to his electoral prospects.
“Everything is bigger in Texas, but Ted Cruz is too small for Texas,” Allred said in his speech, which came about an hour before Beyoncé and then Harris appeared.
