On the night Republicans gathered to mourn the killing of Charlie Kirk and warn against the dangers of violent rhetoric, a crowd at the party’s irregular midterm convention in Dallas repeatedly called for a sitting Senate candidate to be shot, while the Republican senator at the podium never denounced or even noted the outbursts.

The outbursts came repeatedly during Ted Cruz’s Thursday night address at the American Airlines center, when he named a Democrat he accused of holding radical views. After the senator mentioned the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, video footage depicts at least one audience member shouting: “He should be shot!” The same cry followed when Cruz named Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and again after he named Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Cruz did not pause or respond to the shouting, and it remains unclear whether he heard it from the stage. Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.

Cruz had accused Mamdani of wanting to seize the means of production, said El-Sayed felt an “obligation” to follow Sharia law and claimed Talarico wanted to dismantle capitalism. Each characterization stretched past remarks the three men had actually made in other contexts.

Asked about the moment on CNN’s The Source With Kaitlan Collins, El-Sayed said such rhetoric had become dangerously normalized and that it should unsettle anyone who heard it. He called on Republicans to name the chant for what it was: incitement that both parties ought to reject, and appealed for a return to a politics centered on people’s basic needs and dignity.

“Look, I’m a dad with two daughters, and I hope those daughters get to grow up and live with their dad. This is what has become the norm in our politics … literally calls to violence and the inability for anybody to actually call it out,” El-Sayed said.

“We can learn to disagree agreeably, and when you hear that kind of call to violence, it should be shuddering to all of us,” he added.

A spokesperson for Mike Rogers, the Republican former congressman challenging El-Sayed for Michigan’s open Senate seat who was in Dallas for the convention, said Rogers condemned the remarks and “all political violence”.

The convention fell on the first anniversary of the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, an occasion Republican speakers repeatedly invoked, including the vice-president, JD Vance, who spoke of his friendship with Kirk during a headlining address.

El-Sayed is locked in one of the cycle’s most closely watched Senate races. A CNN poll released on Wednesday showed him leading Rogers 47% to 44% in the contest to succeed the retiring Democratic senator Gary Peters, as both parties fight for control of the chamber.