his results in the 2024 Senate race<\/a> as compared to Kamala Harris in the state. (Allred outperformed Harris by about five points.)\n <\/p>\n\n Thompson told CNN that she had been turned on to Talarico\u2019s campaign by a friend last fall and preferred him over Allred. After attending an event of his in Dallas, she started using her social media following to boost him. Talarico\u2019s staff reached out about her video from the rally, she said, and was soon feeding her information like fundraising numbers and clips from his \u201cJubilee\u201d online debate to help.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was like a symbiotic kind of thing. I wasn\u2019t paid by the campaign at all,\u201d Thompson said, though, \u201cI was in constant communication with the campaign.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Thompson said the relationship started to break down after she got a fundraising text for Talarico, signed by the Democratic strategist James Carville, who has been urging Democrats to start moving away from identity politics. Thompson said she saw that as an implicit critique of Black women, and that when she raised her frustrations with the campaign, an aide offered her to have a conversation with Talarico \u2014 either on camera for her to post, or \u201coff the record,\u201d as what was meant to be a private conversation.\n <\/p>\n
\n She says she opted for the less formal conversation, without a recording. But she says she remembers the exchange, which took place backstage before a town hall in Plano on January 12, very well. Thompson said she raised concerns about the association with Carville and suggested that maybe he was chasing a big name, prompting Talarico to say, \u201cSo you\u2019re concerned about me being a sell out?\u201d She said she told him he was overlooking the racial dynamics he\u2019d tipped into, prompting him to say, \u201cI have blind spots.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Campaign spokesman JT Ennis confirmed the association with Thompson \u2014 \u201cthe Talarico campaign works with lots of creators in Texas to keep them updated on the campaign,\u201d he said \u2014 and that they did speak before the Plano event. But Ennis told CNN Talarico does not recall making either of those statements, and that his version was backed up by an aide whom both said was in the room but was not made available for an interview.\n <\/p>\n
\n The conversation turned, Thompson said, when she mentioned to Talarico online chatter she was seeing from people wishing he had run for governor instead \u2014 an option he had considered before launching the Senate run and was urged to reconsider when Crockett jumped into the race late.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat is when he said, \u2018I signed up to run against a mediocre black man, not a formidable, intelligent Black woman,\u2019\u201d Thompson said, \u201cThat is a direct quote.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Thompson also accused Talarico\u2019s campaign of trying to silence her, claiming that her Instagram account had disappeared and her Threads account had been suspended within minutes of when she posted a video about her claims. Thompson does not know how this would have happened, she acknowledged, given that no one on the campaign has her password, but \u201cIt\u2019s just too many factors in play. It\u2019s just too many abnormalities. The timing of it was so fast.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n As for Thompson\u2019s claims about the social media accounts being closed, Ennis said, \u201cNo. We do not have that kind of power, nor would we ever do that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Shortly after Thompson\u2019s video went viral, Allred posted his own video ripping Talarico.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLet me just give you some free advice, James,\u201d Allred said. \u201cIf you want to compliment Black women, just do it. Just do it. Don\u2019t do it while also tearing down a Black man.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n He also suggested Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, was getting unfair attention for his discussion on the campaign trail of Christianity and how Democrats can make inroads with religious voters.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe don\u2019t need you,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re not saying anything unique. You\u2019re just saying it looking like you do.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The Senate primary is March 3. Allred is also on the ballot that day, in a House primary against Rep. Julie Johnson that he entered after leaving the Senate race.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With now just a month to go until Election Day, the Democratic primary for US Senate in Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-446002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}