AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Texas Democrats may be divided over whether state Rep. James Talarico or Rep. Jasmine Crockett should be their party\u2019s Senate nominee. But they agree on one thing: They\u2019re itching for a fight. <\/p>\n
And whoever wins next week\u2019s Senate primary will provide some clues about exactly how Democrats want to go about it \u2014 and whom they want to focus on.<\/p>\n
Both Talarico and Crockett have been casting themselves as fighters, tapping into the angst among Democratic voters and frustration with party leaders that drove record-low ratings<\/a> for the Democratic Party following President Donald Trump\u2019s victory in 2024. <\/p>\n As Talarico addressed hundreds of supporters packed into an event center last week in North Austin, one of his loudest applause lines of the night came as he took aim at his fellow Democrats. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you hate politics and you\u2019ve never voted before, you have a place in this campaign. If you have voted for Democrats but you\u2019re tired of D.C. Democrats always folding, you have a place in this campaign,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd if you voted for Donald Trump but you are fed up with the extremism and the corruption in our government, you have a place in this campaign,\u201d Talarico added. <\/p>\n A few days later, Crockett addressed around 200 supporters gathered at City Cathedral Church in Conroe, where she chided her party for trying too hard to appeal to Republicans in 2024. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not saying that Republicans are not welcome, because the fights that I\u2019m waging, they are for everyone,\u201d Crockett said. \u201cBut I also think that it is truly only fair to the Democratic base to double down and say, \u2018I am a Democrat, and I am going to fight for those principled things like raising the wage,\u2019 which, again, helps everyone, right,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Talarico and Crockett have put forth competing visions for the Democratic Party as it searches for a path forward following a deflating loss to Trump \u2014 and as Democrats try to win their first statewide race in Texas in more than 30 years.<\/p>\n One looks to energize voters across the political spectrum in a fight against a \u201ccorrupt\u201d political and economic system. The other looks to energize Democrats\u2019 core supporters in a fight against Trump. And conversations with nearly 30 Democratic voters in Texas in recent days reveal that they are still divided over which path to follow, and which will lead to a victory in November. <\/p>\n Fighting a \u2018corrupt\u2019 system<\/p>\n Talarico\u2019s message is rooted in his belief he can appeal to Democrats, independents and Republicans, arguing that cross-partisan appeal is the winning strategy in Texas, which Trump won by nearly 14 points in 2024. <\/p>\n He has certainly taken aim at Trump, recently clashing with the administration over an interview with Stephen Colbert, which the comedian said CBS blocked from the airwaves <\/a>due to federal regulatory concerns. Talarico seized on the controversy and suggested the Trump administration viewed him as a threat.<\/p>\n CBS said Colbert’s show “was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview. The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”<\/p>\n Still, Talarico claimed \u201cTrump\u2019s FCC colluded with corporate media executives at CBS to keep that interview off the air, and I think it\u2019s safe to say that their plan backfired,\u201d he said Tuesday at the packed rally, hours after the news about his interview broke. His campaign raised $2.5 million over the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n But while Talarico referred to Trump around a half a dozen times during his rally speech, he stressed that the more fundamental fight is against \u201ca broken, corrupt political system\u201d that benefits the wealthy. <\/p>\n \u201cThe reason our politics sucks right now, it\u2019s not any one politician. It is the system itself,\u201d he said at the Austin rally.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real fight in this country is not left versus right, it\u2019s top versus bottom,\u201d Talarico also said, repeating one of his familiar lines on the campaign trail, the airwaves and the debate stage. <\/p>\n Talarico\u2019s campaign has spent $11.2 million so far on ads touting a message like that \u2014 around four times more than Crockett\u2019s ad spending, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. While each of the Talarico campaign\u2019s four TV ads uses the word \u201cfight\u201d or \u201cfought,\u201d none directly refer to Trump. <\/p>\n In his first TV ad<\/a>, Talarico referred to his work against GOP education, redistricting and abortion policies, saying he wants \u201cto the U.S. Senate to take on corruption and make life more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked after his rally whether that message will resonate with primary voters who may be itching to take on Trump more directly, Talarico told reporters, \u201cMy job is to tell the truth and to be myself. And if that resonates with primary voters, then that\u2019s wonderful. And then we can win this primary and go on and win the general. But if not, then so be it.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s how I assess the brokenness in this country,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n That message resonated with supporters in attendance, some of whom spoke to NBC News about their frustration with the brokenness of \u201cthe system.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cHe understands that there\u2019s something that\u2019s fundamentally wrong with the system the way that it\u2019s set up right now,\u201d said Noah, a civil engineer who declined to share his last name. The Austin native later added of Talarico: \u201cI believe that he\u2019s actually going to make fundamental changes.\u201d<\/p>\n Ethan Adams, 25, who works in tech in Austin, said he is backing Talarico in part because of his \u201canti-big money\u201d stance. <\/p>\n \u201cI think just any chance to mitigate how corrupt the system feels, slash is \u2026 would be great,\u201d Adams said. <\/p>\n Fighting Trump<\/p>\n Crockett has also criticized a \u201cbroken\u201d system, but she has more directly taken aim at Trump on the airwaves and on the campaign trail. And she believes her message will help energize disaffected voters who are more inclined to support Democrats. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re gonna try to convince y\u2019all over and over and over that we can\u2019t do this in Texas,\u201d she said at the Conroe church event.<\/p>\n She said that as she was looking through Texas voting data, \u201cwhat I saw is that we were a nonvoting state. It wasn\u2019t that we\u2019re so red, we weren\u2019t voting.\u201d<\/p>\n Though she is serving only her second term in Congress, Crockett has gained national prominence for sparring with Trump and other Republicans in the media and in videos that have gone viral online.<\/p>\n Crockett launched her Senate campaign in a speech in which she directly addressed the president<\/a> \u2014 and with a 45-second video<\/a> that featured Trump\u2019s voice hurling insults at the prominent two-term congresswoman. <\/p>\n