State Senator Roland Gutierrez Seeks to Unseat Ted Cruz

Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, seeking to unseat Ted Cruz next year.

Here is what you need to learn about the news.

State Senator Roland Gutierrez Seeks To Unseat Ted Cruz

On Monday, Democrat Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez announced that he will run for United States Senate in 2024 and challenged U.S. Senator Ted Cruz to unseat him.

Also, See: Colin Allred to Challenge Sen. Ted Cruz for Senate Seat

Launching his bid for the U.S. Senate through a video release on Monday, Gutierrez said, “I am a proud gun owner and believer in the Second Amendment, but after 19 children and two teachers died, the Republicans would not even allow us an opportunity to talk about ways to protect our kids. It is why we have to do something now.”

Gutierrez, 52, is an immigration attorney elected to the state Senate in 2020. He became a member of the Texas House of Representatives in 2008 and had earlier served on the San Antonio City Council for three years.

Gutierrez, whose district extends from San Antonio to the Rio Grande, including Uvalde, gained attention for his push for police accountability and strict gun laws after the Uvalde School Shooting in Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers.

As a State Senator, Gutierrez focuses on measures to restrict gun purchases by increasing the age to buy AR-15-style rifles and boosting legal procedures to control gun sales. However, his bills never received recognition in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

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As per the report, the gun violence issue and the reluctance of Texas Republicans at the state and federal levels to regulate guns with effective laws are the driving force behind Gutierrez’s run for the U.S. Senate. Sources say the attorney would be passionate about the issue as he has been during news conferences on television.

In one of his interviews in May after the news of a gunman killing eight people and injuring seven others at the mall north of Dallas, Gutierrez said, “There is a special place in hell for people who have this kind of problem staring them square in the face and have done nothing about it.”

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Gutierrez is the second major Democratic politician to enter the race for U.S Senate after Representative Colin Allred, a high-profile Democrat, a civil rights lawyer, and former NFL player elected to Congress in 2018, declared his run in May.

While Gutierrez begins his campaign for the U.S. Senate with a fund-raising disadvantage, as Texas law prevented him from racing money until mid-June, Allred reportedly raised $6.2 million in the first two months of his campaign.

But Gutierrez said fund-raising is not a critical issue, especially in a general election, because Democrats have been willing to spend money to remove Ted Cruz.

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Cruz, seeking a third term, defeated El Paso Democrat Beto O’Rourke by less than 3% votes 2018. He has constantly faced criticism over his response to the May 6 mass shooting in the Dallas suburb.

Cruz is considered one of the highly vulnerable Senate Republicans in the upcoming elections. A spokesperson for Cruz said, “Texans will now get to watch Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez slug it out for who can be the most radical leftist in the state. Meanwhile, Senator Cruz will continue passionately defending Texas and delivering real results for 30 million Texans.”

Gutierrez and Allred have entered the race hoping to unseat Republican Ted Cruz instead of competing with another Democratic opponent and will face the Democratic primary on March 5, 2023. If any of the two candidates wins, it would be the first time after 1988 that a Democrat would be elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas.