Houston
—
Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett is quick to admit she’s not running a traditional Senate campaign, a strategy that will soon be put to the test in next month’s Democratic primary.
“I don’t really subscribe to this idea of doing everything in a traditional way,” Crockett told a group of faith leaders over breakfast at a Houston restaurant Friday morning.
By the end of the day, the 44-year-old congresswoman was taking her pitch to the Houston nightlife scene, captured on social media introducing herself to voters at a bar by saying, “I’m Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Right now, I’m ready to kick some a** and become your next US senator.”
Crockett’s at-times unfiltered and largely unconventional approach is challenging the traditional rules of electoral politics at a time when Democrats nationwide are debating how to win in a consequential midterm year and beyond.
A former public defender and civil rights attorney, Crockett has pushed back on those questioning her electability, referring to such suggestions as a “dog whistle” and “tearing down a Black woman,” pointing to attacks from a super PAC supporting her Democratic primary rival, state Rep. James Talarico. She’s making the case that the path to a Democratic victory in Texas is through reenergizing the party’s base, including voters of color — not by persuading moderates and Republicans who have soured on President Donald Trump.
“For the last 30 years, we’ve tried it the traditional way, and it’s not worked. And the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over,” Crockett told CNN after an event in Conroe, Texas. “In this moment, there is nothing traditional about how our government is operating, and so I think that people are looking for something different.”
After gaining notoriety for her blunt showdowns with Republicans on Capitol Hill, Crockett rode into the Texas Senate contest with high name recognition, a factor playing to her advantage in the early stages of the campaign. But by some traditional metrics, Crockett lags Talarico in the Democratic primary.
Talarico holds a commanding advantage over Crockett in fundraising, bringing in more than $20 million since launching his candidacy last September compared with the $3.7 million she raised since announcing her bid in December. Crockett has also transferred an additional $4.8 million from her House campaign account. Television ads from Talarico and groups supporting him have far outpaced Crockett’s presence on the airwaves.
Her decision to enter the Senate contest right before the filing deadline also left Crockett with a much shorter runway than Talarico leading up to the March primary. She has not built out a robust campaign team and has had to juggle her campaign schedule with her congressional duties in Washington.
Public polling in the race has been limited, but a University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll conducted in January found Crockett leading Talarico by 8 points among likely Democratic primary voters.
Talarico’s recent viral moment with “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert has helped boost his profile, injecting a new dynamic in the critical early voting stretch. His campaign said he raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours after the late-show dustup.
“The race is about: Does James have enough money and time to introduce himself to Democratic primary voters statewide and to try to catch up to where Jasmine Crockett has been for some time?” said one Democratic strategist in Texas who is tracking the contest. “She’s known as a fighter, and she’s well-liked by Democrats and in a lot of corners of the state.”
Whether Crockett can succeed in a general election against a Republican opponent in a state like Texas has become an undercurrent of her campaign.
One of the most prominent examples of the split among Democrats came in January when two comedians on the popular “Las Culturistas” podcast told audiences not to donate to Crockett’s campaign, suggesting she couldn’t win the general election contest.
The two have since apologized, but it pushed a debate over electability to the forefront of the primary race.
The Texas Democratic strategist dismissed the amount of discussion focused on electability, saying, “If there was a recipe for electability in Texas Democratic politics, we probably would have solved this a long time ago.”
State Rep. Nicole Collier, a Crockett supporter who has known the congresswoman for a decade, told CNN some of these concerns are “coming from a place of fear of the unknown” and will depend on an individual’s view of electability.
“There’s enough Democrats or people who have identified as Democrats that are out there. It’s just getting them to the polls, getting them to vote, and it’s finding that candidate who motivates them to do that. That’s the person who’s electable,” she said. “You’re electable when I vote you in.”
Collier pointed to Crockett’s run for the Texas House of Representatives in 2020, when she won a Democratic primary runoff against Lorraine Birabil, who had recently been elected to the Dallas-area seat in a special election.
“She’s defied things,” Collier said. “You look at her race for the state rep. seat … she beat them. She got out there and did the work. They didn’t think she was electable.”
Speaking with CNN after seeing Crockett at an event in Conroe, undecided voter Richard Traylor said he was struggling with his decision. He said he favored Crockett but was concerned she might not be able to win Latino voters in a general election.
“I have vacillated back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. I like her better than all of them,” said Traylor, who lives in New Waverly, Texas. “But I like winning better.”
“It’s hard to vote against somebody that I like the best. It really is. Maybe I’ll flip a coin,” Traylor said.
Crockett has faced scrutiny for a 2024 comment suggesting some Latino voters exhibited a “slave mentality” by supporting Trump, including on immigration policy. Pressed about the comment in a CNN interview last year, Crockett said, “No, and that’s not what that said at all, to be clear. It did not say that every Latino has that type of mentality.”
“I don’t believe that the people that voted for Trump believe in what they’re actually getting. That is No. 1,” she added. “What Trump said is that he was going to kick out the bad guys. And that’s what I was talking about.”
Sonya Bernhardt, a Democratic voter from Houston, told CNN she loved Crockett’s fiery style and willingness to take on Republicans in committee hearings on Capitol Hill. But she grew emotional as she shared why she voted for Talarico over the congresswoman.
“We need a fighter. And I was so ready to vote for Jasmine Crockett, because I love her, but I voted for Talarico because we need somebody who can win,” Bernhardt said after casting her vote Friday. “That was one of the most difficult votes I’ve ever voted in my entire life.”
In an interview with CNN, Crockett pointed to other Democratic politicians who faced doubts about their ability to win, including Barack Obama, Kamala Harris when she was Joe Biden’s running mate, and Ann Richards, the last Democratic governor of Texas and only the second woman to hold the office.
“This isn’t about what can’t be done,” Crockett said. “This is about imagining what it is that we want to get done. And frankly, right now, Texans need a fighter in this moment.”
An intensely fought primary on the Republican side is giving some in the Democratic Party hope the reliably conservative state could be put in play this November. But Democrats face difficult political terrain in Texas, where no member of the party has won statewide in more than 30 years.
“I don’t agree that we are a conservative state. We are a non-voting state,” Crockett told CNN.
Crockett, whose fiery brand has amassed a large social media following, is betting her more combative style will help mobilize voters heading into a November contest. At the center of her strategy is turning out once-reliable parts of the Democratic base, including young people and voters of color.
Over the weekend, Crockett appeared at several events with the Texas Organizing Project, a PAC focused on organizing in Black and Latino communities in some of the state’s largest counties.
Crockett is also trying to engage low-propensity voters, saying her team tries to maintain a presence at non-political venues like bars, concerts and flea markets.
“We are a majority-minority state,” Crockett told the group of faith leaders Friday. “This scaredy-cat tactic that some people want to take, we ain’t got time for that. We have to be bold, and we have to make sure that people know there’s someone that sees them.”
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and former teacher who has cultivated his own online fan base, has discussed the need to not just turn out base voters but to also draw in independents and Republicans who have soured on their party leaders.
The diverging turnout strategies come as the Democratic Party tries to rebound from the 2024 election, when many young, Black and Latino voters either shifted toward Trump or sat out.
Outside a polling location in Houston, Andre Graves, a Democratic voter, said he thinks Crockett’s messaging will motivate voters who “have been sitting on their hands” and “accepting the status quo.”
“Sometimes you got to be untraditional because traditional hasn’t been working,” he said. “Sometimes you got to get in the mud with the pigs, and I think she’ll get in the mud with the pigs.”