On Monday, Rep. Jasmine Crockett shook up Texas politics when she filed to run for the Democratic nomination for one of the two Lone Star State seats in the U.S. Senate.
Almost immediately, everyone in Washington could hear Texas Republicansâ boot-heels clicking.
Jennifer DeCasper, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, tweeted that Crockett was the NRSCâs â#1 recruit.â Indeed, the committee had put out a poll in July showing her leading Democrat Colin Allred, who announced Monday he would drop out of the race to run instead for his old House seat.
Crockett has become a darling of the âNo Kingsâ protest-marching liberals who enjoy her for her barbs against Republicans such as calling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene a âbleach blonde bad-built butch bodyâ and Rep. Nancy Mace âchildâ after Mace made transphobic remarks.
But Crockett has also gotten herself in trouble in recent months for the same sharp tongue that allows her to raise gobs of cash.
Earlier this year, she came under fire for calling Texas Gov. Greg Abbott â who has a disability and uses a wheelchair â âGovernor Hot Wheels.â She also recently spoke on the House floor and said that Environmental Protection Agency Director Lee Zeldin received money from Jeffrey Epstein when Zeldin served in Congress from New York, but it was a person not related to the late convicted sex offender.
Now Crockett is set for a collision course with state legislator James Talarico. But some Democrats fear that Crockett might cost them their best chance at causing a 50-50 Senate in 2026.
âI think Jasmine Crockett is a fire brand, somebody who understands that to reach people in the modern age,â Micah Erfan, a former executive committee member of the Texas Democratic Party, told The Independent.
He said that any Democrat would need to win over Republicans and independents who otherwise would not vote for a Democrat. Instead, Crockett seems focused on going all-in on her anti-Trump messaging. Her announcement video features soundbytes of Trump criticizing her, a bold move for a Democrat in a state where Trump won by double digits.
â The Electoral math that we have is one in which we have to win over, as I said, a bunch of voters that are currently voting for Republicans or have voted for Republicans in the past,â Erfan said. âAnd that means that you’re going to have to win over these Latinos. That means you’re going to have to win over maybe some Christians, right? Some moderates and independents.â
Speaking of Christ, make no mistake: Democrats would need an act of God to flip Texasâ Senate seat under normal circumstances. They have not won a statewide race there since 1994 and have not won a Senate race since 1988.
Every once in a while, Democrats see a glimmer of hope. In 2008, Barack Obama flipped Harris County, which made Democrats think they could one day compete in the state. That turned out to be foolâs gold and in 2014, Democrats got clobbered.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton got within 10 points of Texas and won three congressional districts. That opened the door for Beto OâRourke to get within striking distance against Ted Cruz, which carried Allred and Lizze Fletcher to flip two House seats in 2018. In 2020, Democrats got within 5.5 points of winning Texas, but they collapsed in the Rio Grande Valley, serving as a precursor to Trump flipping the predominantly Hispanic region in 2024.
âI’d say that the way to victory in Texas is by getting Assad margins with Hispanics,â Erfan said. âI think the idea right now is that ice and the Trump administration’s policies regarding deportations is going to hand us the Hispanic vote. I think it will, to a certain extent, but we need not just 75% of the vote. We need 89% of the vote to overcome the margins that Republicans are getting with white Texans.â
That being said, Democrats donât have many options to take back the Senate. Republicans have 53 Senate seats, meaning Democrats need to flip three to even tie and force JD Vance to make a bunch of votes the way Kamala Harris did.
Only one Republican hails from a state that voted for Harris: Sen. Susan Collins and a contentious primary between Gov. Janet Mills and progressive favorite Graham Platner makes it far from a guaranteed flip. Their next best chance to flip is North Carolina, where former Democratic governor Roy Cooper, who won the state twice in a year Trump won it, is running for retiring Sen. Thom Tillisâs seat.
Still, Democrats have a golden opportunity given that Republicans have a slugfest of a primary. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is running for re-election against the stateâs attorney general Ken Paxton, whom the Republican state legislature impeached before the state senate acquitted him. His wife Angela, a state senator, announced she would divorce Paxton âon biblical grounds,â given Paxtonâs multiple affairs.
Matt Angle, the founder of the liberal Lone Star Policy Project, told The Independent that the race will be a dogfight.
âKen Paxton is going to win that primary, they’re going to nominate a criminal,â Angle said. âJohn Cornyn is a dead Senator walking his brand of Republican in Texas has been extinct for a while here, yeah, and his, his kind of faking being MAGA.â
It will still be a lift for them. Angle said the immortal question for Democrats is whether to persuade people or to build a coalition.
âAnd so the question is that challenge for Jasmine or for James Talarico, whoever is the nominee, because remember, Jasmine’s not the nominee, and James Talarico is a very strong candidate,â he said. âThey got to not only expand the base, but also build that coalition you need in Texas.â
Ultimately, if the primary turns out to be a race between Crockett and Paxton, a real possibility, the race might come down to whom voters dislike less. Someone like Paxton might have enough baggage to turn away certain voters. But even in a swing year, a firebrand like Crockett might compel voters who otherwise might consider voting for a Democrat to stay away.
