Allred attended Hillcrest High School in Dallas, and Baylor University. He played college football for the Baylor Bears as a linebacker. In December 2005, Allred graduated from Baylor with a B.A. in history. Allred was signed by the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent following the 2006 NFL Draft on May 4, 2006. He was waived on August 29 but was re-signed on January 26, 2007. Next, Allred was waived on September 1 during final cuts, and was subsequently signed to the practice squad on September 2. He was promoted to the active roster on December 15 and was re-signed on February 17, 2010.
Law career
Following his football career, Allred enrolled in law school. After graduating from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 2014, Allred worked as a special assistant in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of General Counsel alongside then-Secretary Julian Castro in the administration of President Barack Obama. Subsequently, Allred worked as an attorney at the Perkins Coie law firm, where he was a voting rights litigator and counsel to clients including national and state political candidates and advocacy organizations. Politico described him as a "civil rights attorney."
On April 21, 2017, Allred announced his campaign to challenge incumbent RepublicanPete Sessions in 2018. In a crowded Democratic primary which included two other Obama-administration alums, Allred finished first, by 20 points, but did not get 50 percent of the vote. In the May 22 runoff election, Allred defeated Lewisville businesswoman Lillian Salerno, receiving 69.5% of the vote. Allred faced long-time incumbent Sessions for the 32nd District seat. As of the November 2016 election, this was considered a swing district because Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received marginally more votes than Donald Trump even as Sessions was reelected with no major-party opposition. Allred has described himself as a moderate Democrat. On November 6, 2018, Allred was elected to the United States House of Representatives for the 32nd district of Texas. Allred's victory was considered an upset because Sessions had been in Congress since 1997 and had represented the 32nd District since 2003. He became the second person to represent this district since it was created in 2003, and the first Democrat. Sessions had represented the neighboring 5th District, and transferred to the 32nd after the 5th was seemingly made less Republican in redistricting. As a measure of how Republican this area had been, much of what is now the 32nd had not been represented by a Democrat since 1968, when it was part of the neighboring 3rd district. He was one of two former NFL players to win a seat in Congress that year, the other being Republican Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio. In February 2019, Allred endorsed his former boss and fellow Texan, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. Following Castro's withdrawal from the race, Allred endorsed Joe Biden.
Tenure
Allred was elected in November 2018 as co-president of the 116th Congressional Freshman Class, alongside fellow Obama administration alumna Haley Stevens of Michigan. On December 18, 2019, Allred voted for both articles of impeachment against President Donald J. Trump.
