Rep. Julie Johnson and former Rep. Colin Allred will face each other again in a Democratic primary runoff, NBC News projects, after Allred dropped out of the Texas Senate race last year and made a run for a House seat reshaped by redistricting.
Neither candidate achieved a majority of the vote in a Tuesday’s first-round primary.
The primary in the deep-blue 33rd District in the Dallas area got competitive after Allred left the Senate race in deference to Rep. Jasmine Crockett, instead opting to run for the House.
Johnson succeeded Allred in a different Dallas-based district in 2024, when he ran for the Senate the first time and lost the general election to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred’s decision to run against his chosen successor made for uncomfortable dynamics in the race.
“I think that it’s a little awkward, but at the end of the day, he made this choice,” Johnson told NBC News last month.
The race heated up over stock trading and immigration enforcement.
The two accused each other in different ways of supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement or companies tied to it. The Texas Tribune reported last month that Johnson bought and later sold stock last year in Palantir, a data company with ties to ICE, according to congressional financial disclosure reports.
Johnson said that she had an independent money manager and that the stocks were sold last year before any ICE escalations in Minneapolis.
She told NBC News that she has voted against ICE funding and against Palantir’s interests.
Allred, who has faced criticism for voting in favor of a Trump-backed immigration detention law, advocated for increased congressional oversight of ICE if Democrats win the majority in the midterms.
