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Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke Debate Who Is ‘Out of Step’ With Texas

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Representative Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat challenging him for a Senate seat, in Dallas on Friday during the first of three debates before the midterm elections.Credit...Nathan Hunsinger/EPA, via Shutterstock

Manny Fernandez and

DALLAS — Senator Ted Cruz sought to revive his struggling bid for re-election on Friday night, using the first debate with his opponent, Representative Beto O’Rourke, as a referendum on Texas values on issues like the criminal justice system and immigration as he tried to gain the upper hand in a familiar setting against a less-experienced opponent.

In an hourlong debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Mr. Cruz and Mr. O’Rourke traded jabs and accused one another of mischaracterizing their views and being “out of step” with Texas.

Mr. O’Rourke spoke of rewriting immigration laws “in our own image,” and of freeing the unauthorized young immigrants known as “Dreamers” from the fear of deportation by making them U.S. citizens. Mr. Cruz said his opponent was focused on fighting for illegal immigrants.

“Americans are dreamers also,” said Mr. Cruz, who argued that his views on immigration boiled down to “legal, good; illegal, bad.”

And in one of the sharpest exchanges of the night, Mr. Cruz argued that Mr. O’Rourke often sided against the police, and accused the congressman of describing law enforcement officers as “modern day Jim Crow.” Mr. Cruz added, “I think it is offensive to call police officers modern day Jim Crow. That is not Texas.”

Mr. O’Rourke denied that he described police officers that way. On Wednesday, at a town hall event at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college in Prairie View, Tex., Mr. O’Rourke had complained about racism within the criminal justice system, including racial profiling and unjust police shootings of people of color.

According to a video clip of part of his speech, Mr. O’Rourke referred to a system in which police officers suspect, search and shoot people “solely based on the color of their skin,” and added, “It is why some have called this, and I think it is an apt description, the new Jim Crow.”

Standing behind a podium at Friday’s face-off, Mr. Cruz came off as the more experienced debater and the more aggressive candidate. Mr. O’Rourke, taking the stage for the most important and most widely watched debate of his political life, seemed primed not to demolish his opponent but rather win over the audience in Dallas and beyond.

Mr. O’Rourke has been running as an outspoken liberal, convinced that political authenticity and a message aimed across demographics and age groups can help him pull off the biggest upset in modern Texas political history. Yet Mr. O’Rourke often seemed on the defensive, an unusual posture for a politician known for his charisma, and he struggled to build big flourishes into bite-sized 90-second answers.

Mr. Cruz was pressed about his support for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Kavanaugh, in light of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Mr. Cruz, asked if Dr. Blasey could say anything that might lead him to oppose Judge Kavanaugh, replied “absolutely,” but he did not offer specifics.

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During the debate on Friday, Mr. O’Rourke called for changes to immigration law, referring to young unauthorized immigrants and saying, “We begin by freeing Dreamers from the fear of deportation.”Credit...Pool photo by Tom Fox

“The allegations she’s raised are serious, and they deserve to be treated with respect,” Mr. Cruz said.

Mr. O’Rourke was sharply critical of Judge Kavanaugh on voting rights issues and abortion rights, and said that Dr. Blasey should be heard and her accusation should be investigated by the F.B.I.

With his debate performance, Mr. Cruz was seeking a jolt of momentum for his re-election bid and to halt the rising popularity of Mr. O’Rourke and calm some Washington Republicans who have expressed worry he may lose. Mr. Cruz, who was a leading Republican presidential candidate against Donald J. Trump in 2016, is seeking a second term in the Senate, but he faces a robust challenge from Mr. O’Rourke, who is trying to become the first Democrat since 1994 to win a statewide election in deep-red Texas.

Recent polls have indicated that the race is a tossup. On Tuesday, a poll by Quinnipiac University showed Mr. Cruz leading Mr. O’Rourke by nine percentage points among likely voters surveyed by phone. On Wednesday, an online poll by Reuters and others put Mr. O’Rourke ahead of Mr. Cruz by two percentage points among likely voters, the first poll that has had Mr. O’Rourke in the lead.

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Early on in the debate, the two candidates were asked about a police shooting that has heightened racial tensions in Dallas. A white off-duty police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man, Botham Shem Jean, while he was in his apartment. The officer claimed that she mistakenly entered the apartment believing it was hers, and shot Mr. Jean because she thought he was an intruder.

“I don’t know what happened that evening,” Mr. Cruz said. “Congressman O’Rourke doesn’t know what happened that evening. But he immediately called for firing the officer. I think that’s a mistake.”

Mr. O’Rourke did not respond to that remark about firing the officer, but said in reference to the fatal shooting of Mr. Jean, “No member of law enforcement wants that happen. No member of this community wants that to happen, but we’ve got to do something better than what we’ve been doing so far.”

When Mr. Cruz accused Mr. O’Rourke of spreading divisive, anti-police rhetoric, Mr. O’Rourke pounced. “This is why people don’t like Washington, D.C., you just said something that I did not say and attributed to me,” Mr. O’Rourke said, as the audience applauded.

“What did you not say?” Mr. Cruz replied.

“I’m not going to repeat the slander and misrepresentation,” Mr. O’Rourke said. “This is your trick in the trade: to confuse and to incite, based on fear, and not to speak the truth.”

A telling moment came in a discussion about the mass shooting at Santa Fe High School. Mr. Cruz spoke of visiting Santa Fe students at a hospital, and he said they told him that more armed officers in schools, not more gun control, was the answer.

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Debating immigration, Mr. Cruz said that his views on the issue could be reduced to four words: “legal, good; illegal, bad.”Credit...Pool photo by Tom Fox

Mr. O’Rourke responded by repeating a popular liberal criticism of the pro-gun response to mass shootings. “Thoughts and prayers, Senator Cruz, are just not going to cut it anymore,” Mr. O’Rourke said. “The people of Texas, the children of Texas, deserve action.”

Mr. Cruz seized the opening. “Hold on a second,” Mr. Cruz said. “Let me be very clear. More armed police officers in our schools is not thoughts and prayers. I’m sorry that you don’t like thoughts and prayers. I will pray for anyone in harm’s way, but I will also do something about it.”

Mr. O’Rourke’s defense of football players taking a knee during the national anthem has received millions of online views. On Friday, he again defended the players’ actions, when asked whether he thought his views were out of step with Texans.

Mr. Cruz advanced a view shared by many conservatives, saying that although “everyone has a right to protest,” the players who are protesting “can speak in a way that doesn’t disrespect the flag, that doesn’t disrespect the national anthem.”

The debate came at a crucial time for Mr. Cruz, as Mr. O’Rourke has been on a recent upswing and has become a kind of Democratic rock-star in Texas and nationwide, with TV talk-show appearances and packed rallies. A top Trump adviser, Mick Mulvaney, the federal budget director, evoked the anxiety among many Republicans when he told donors recently in New York City that Mr. Cruz might lose re-election because he is not seen as “likable” enough.

The Cruz and O’Rourke campaigns have agreed to three one-hour debates: The first one Friday in Dallas; a second on Sept. 30 at the University of Houston; and a third on Oct. 16 in San Antonio.

Unlike his raucous town halls, Mr. O’Rourke struggled at times to set the terms of this forum.

While Mr. O’Rourke reached for the kind of high-mindedness that has powered his run, speaking of shared values and bipartisan possibilities, he was often forced on the defensive, repeatedly using his time to accuse Mr. Cruz of misrepresenting his words and, at one point, appearing to refute a news article about attempting to leave the scene during a drunken driving episode in his 20s.

But in the debate’s final meaningful exchange, Mr. O’Rourke seemed to find a contrast he was seeking. The candidates had been asked to identify a positive quality in their opponent. Mr. O’Rourke gave a straightforward response, citing the sacrifice Mr. Cruz had made being away from his family so often as a public official.

Mr. Cruz went in another direction: Mr. O’Rourke should be saluted for his genuine belief in his ideas, he said. Just like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont believes in socialism.

“I think you are absolutely sincere, like Bernie,” Mr. Cruz said, “that you believe in expanding government and higher taxes.”

“True to form,” Mr. O’Rourke replied.

Manny Fernandez reported from Dallas, and Mitchell Ferman from McAllen, Tex. Matt Flegenheimer contributed from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Senate Candidates Paint a Deep Divide on Immigration in Texas Debate. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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