Dallas Democratic Congressman Colin Allred and Republican challenger Genevieve Collins accused each other of political failures during a virtual debate Sunday, that remained civil.
The North Texas district at stake covers much of Dallas, the park cities, Richardson, Garland and northeast to Wylie. Freshman Collin Allred has served two years after defeating Republican Pete Sessions, who’d held the seat since it was created in 2003.
Allred cites as accomplishments Garland’s new VA hospital, passage of the CARES act that helped people through the pandemic and support for the bullet train planned between Dallas and Houston.
Business-woman Genevieve Collins, running in her first race, says she’s the pro-business and law-and-order candidate. In ads, and again during the debate, she accused Allred of defunding police and other policy decisions stereotypically associated with Democrats.
“He’s an ineffective, Washington, party-line politician who’s passed zero bills while he’s been in office,” Collins said. “My opponent has to stand for his record... which he votes with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time. Just two weeks ago he voted to defund the police by $600 million.”
Allred wasted no time rejecting the allegation, saying “I do not support defunding the police and I’ve never said that.”
Allred then accused the Republicans, along with Collins, of playing partisan politics instead of helping the American people.
“We passed and I voted for $600 million in additional funding for our local police in the first HEROES act, and Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the senate said 'no,'" Allred said. "They demanded that we come back with a much lower figure, and so there was never any funding provided other than that I voted to actually add funding and Mitch McConnell said 'no'.”
The online debate was sponsored by the American Jewish Committee of Dallas. Both candidates support Israel, and have condemned anti-Semitic actions and organizations.
Allred and Collins also both support additional federal funding for those out of work because of the pandemic, and support funding to help airlines in the coronavirus downturn. Two of the biggest airlines affected are in North Texas – Southwest and American Airlines.
Early voting is underway until Oct. 30. Election day’s Nov. 3.
Got a tip? Email Reporter Bill Zeeble at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @bzeeble.
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