This past Monday, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett dropped a political bombshellentering the Senate primary, prompting one fellow Democrat to bow out and jolting both the electorate and the state’s political establishment.
Even in progressive circles, the critiques of her came quickly. Her launch video—focused almost entirely on her disdain for President Donald Trump—was dismissed by some as a self-indulgent introduction that offered little sense of what she’d do for Texans in the Senate.
The instinct to panic is familiar. In a state like Texas, where Democrats haven’t won statewide since 1994, “electability” becomes a kind of religion. And Crockett is no sure bet. Though polling is sparse, one new survey from Texas Southern University puts her 8 percentage points ahead of fellow Democrat James Talarico, 51% to 43%, in the March primary.
But a twist came shortly after Crockett’s announcement, when NOTUS reported that the Republicans’ Senate campaign arm had quietly worked to encourage her to run. The National Republican Senatorial Committee reportedly deployed recruitment calls and circulated friendly polls that made Crockett’s support appear organic.
The implication was startling: Crockett may have been nudged into the race by political operatives who think her brand is too polarizing for Texas.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re not. Either way, the real tests won’t come until March and then, if she wins the primary, November.
Crockett hasn’t helped herself at times. She’s suggested she doesn’t need Republican votes to win statewide, which is flatly untrueand some of her older remarks about Latino Trump supporters are resurfacing now that she’s running for higher office. Those are fair critiques, though the broader conversation has also been clouded by caricature and confusion over her politics.
Critics say she’s too far left for Texas—and VoteView data shows she’s more liberal than 84% of House Democrats in the 119th Congress. Still, Talarico is also running as a progressive. Crockett’s advantage is her visibility and growing national profile. She’s gone viral for her clashes with Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and for bluntly calling out the Trump administration—moments that have given her a reputation as a fearless operator.
Yet she’s hardly a doctrinaire leftist. In 2022, Crockett publicly distanced herself from “the Squad,” which includes New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“I am coming from a state where there are a ton of jobs that rely on oil and gas, and so I have to be mindful of who my constituency is. Now, my district doesn’t self-identify as progressive,” she told Politico. “About 30% of the district does, the other 70% identify as either moderate or conservative Democrats.”
Meanwhile, the public may simply read Talarico as more moderate. A devout Christian and former public school teacher who went on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, he carries many aesthetic markers of centrism—even though his stances are, in practice, reliably progressive. As studies show, voters’ assumptions about Black candidates versus white ones shape that perceptionwhether or not people admit it.
Crockett’s candidacy also factors into a larger strategic puzzle for Democrats. Yes, Republicans seemingly prefer her as the nominee. But state Attorney General Ken Paxton—should he survive a primary against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Wesley Hunt—comes with his own liabilities.
A recent Change Research poll shows Crockett trailing Paxton and Cornyn by single digits. Nearly half of Texas voters (49%) say they’d “definitely not” vote for her—the highest of any candidate tested—but Democrats also report far higher enthusiasm to vote next year, with 63% rating it a 10 out of 10, compared with 50% of Republicans and 41% of independents who give the same rating.
Paxton’s unpopularity could be another opening. The same poll finds that 81% of Texas Democrats view him very unfavorably, and 50% of independents do. He may energize Crockett’s base as much as she repels others.
And in a year where voters are furious, Democrats may be willing to gamble on someone who knows how to channel that anger. According to a December report by the Pew Research Center44% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they feel angry toward the federal government—higher than during the COVID-19 pandemic’s peak in Trump’s first term. That kind of fury can be politically catalytic. After all, 2025 has shown that Democrats can pull off the improbable when outrage is the accelerant.
The point isn’t that Crockett is the Democrats’ ideal nominee. As election analyst Nate Silver notesher margins in her solidly blue Dallas district are impressive, but that doesn’t automatically translate statewide. Rather, the point is that writing her off is premature—and, more importantly, undemocratic.
Parties should try to refrain from narrowing voters’ choices months before primary ballots are cast.
If she’s not the strongest general election candidate, the campaign will make that clear. Voters may drift, or Talarico may outperform her in key communities. But until then, the panic feels misplaced. The race has barely begun.
Let voters, not pundits, decide who gets to try.
