Dec. 8 (UPI) — Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred announced Monday he’s dropping his U.S. Senate campaign and will instead run for a newly redrawn district on the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a statement posted to X, Allred said he wants to avoid a “bruising” Democratic primary for the Senate.

“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by [President] Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers,” he said, referring to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

“That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the U.S. Senate.”

Allred is instead running for the 33rd Congressional District, which is currently represented in the House by Rep. Marc Veasey, a Democrat. But after Texas redrew its congressional map this year, Veasey’s base was no longer in the 33rd District; he plans to run for the 30th District next year, an unnamed source told The Texas Tribune.

Both the old and new boundaries of the 33rd District is a meandering region including parts of Dallas and Tarrant Counties, and the eastern half of Fort Worth. The new map, reaches farther north and changes some of the boundaries in western Dallas County.

Allred was elected in 2018 to the U.S. House to represent the 32nd District, which encompassed a swath of eastern Dallas County. He flipped the district from red to blue.

“The 33rd District was racially gerrymandered by Trump in an effort to further rig our democracy, but it’s also the community where I grew up attending public schools and watching my mom struggle to pay for our groceries,” Allred said in his Monday statement.

Voting rights advocates and Democrats took the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature to the Supreme Court over the redrawn congressional map, accusing the Republicans of gerrymandering based on racial population. The high court last week gave Texas permission to use the new map in the next midterm elections.

“On January 6th, I was prepared to physically fight to defend our democracy,” Allred said. “Today, the danger we face from Donald Trump is even greater and has added a level of corruption and rigging of our economy that has made it harder than ever for Texans.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi (C), FBI Director Kash Patel (R), U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro and others hold a press conference at the Department of Justice Headquarters on Thursday. The FBI arrested Brian Cole of Virginia, who is believed to be responsible for placing pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo