DALLAS ― Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) repeatedly avoided giving a direct answer to questions about his position on abortion rights during a debate with Rep. Colin Allred, the Democrat hoping to spoil his bid for a third term.

Debate moderator Gromer Jeffers asked Cruz whether he would support exceptions to abortion bans for cases for rape and incest.

“Well, listen, abortion is an issue that many Texans, many Americans, care deeply about, and it’s an issue that people of good faith can disagree,” Cruz said, adding that it’s appropriate for states to set their own laws.

“You did not directly answer the question,” Jeffers, a Dallas Morning News political reporter, said before asking again, prompting another non-answer from Cruz.

“Why is this an issue you won’t address, about saying whether you support or oppose exceptions for rape and incest?” Jeffers asked.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” Cruz said, before quickly pointing out that Allred avoided specifying, in response to statements from Cruz himself, whether he supported allowing minors to get abortions without parental notification.

It was the most dramatic moment of Tuesday night’s debate, during which Cruz and Allred both stuck to the scripts they’ve developed over the past several months of campaigning, with Allred hitting Cruz for his opposition to abortion rights as well as his infamous trip to Cancun during a deadly winter storm, and Cruz hammering Allred for supposedly supporting men competing in women’s sports.

“He has come out for men playing in women’s sports, for boys playing in girls’ sports,” Cruz said, citing, among other things, Allred’s vote against a House bill aimed at cutting federal funding for colleges that allow athletes whose assigned sex at birth was male to compete in women’s sports.

Most polls show Cruz maintaining a slim lead, though the race is remarkably close considering Donald Trump won the state in 2020 by more than 8 percentage points. Both lawmakers have sought to portray themselves as moderates, and Allred has heavily emphasized his background as a former NFL linebacker.

Without going into detail about his policy position, Allred denied that he supports boys participating in girls’ sports, and he sought to redirect Cruz’s anti-transgender attacks to return to the issue of abortion.

“You don’t have to be a former NFL linebacker to recognize a Hail Mary when you see one,” Allred said. “What he wants you thinking about is kids in bathrooms so you’re not thinking about women in hospitals, because it’s indefensible, indefensible that we have Texas women being turned away from hospitals, bleeding out in their cars and later being found by their husbands.”

Cruz criticized Allred for having previously opposed the concept of a wall along the southern U.S. border and said he’s essentially the same as Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

“He calls the border wall ‘that racist border wall,’ and he has pledged to tear down that racist border wall personally,” Cruz said. “Colin Allred is Kamala Harris.”

Allred said he does now support a physical barrier as part of broader immigration reforms. He faulted Cruz for opposing a bipartisan bill that would have funded wall construction and tightened eligibility for asylum claims.

“So time and again, Sen. Cruz treats our border communities like he is going on some kind of safari,” Allred said. “He comes down, he puts on his outdoor clothes, he goes back to Washington and does nothing to help.”

Ahead of the debate on Tuesday, the Allred campaign hosted a news conference with several Texas women who had struggled to navigate the state’s abortion ban. Kate Cox, a mother of two who has sued the state over the restrictions, described her experience traveling out of state to get an abortion after pregnancy complications imperiled her health.

“We learned our baby would never survive, and the risks to my health and a future pregnancy were growing, and the Texas abortion ban made a terribly difficult decision impossible to make in my home state,” Cox said.

“Ted Cruz says these abortion bans are reasonable,” Cox said. “I have personally seen the devastation.”