The charismatic Rep. Jasmine Crockett had long been an acerbic critic of the Trump administration, with an uncanny flair for alliterative putdowns that could viralize like nobody’s business.

The contemporary political scene has devolved to the point where it’s fine—more than fine—for a member of Congress to say anything that comes to mind. Crockett’s willingness to give as good as she gets resonates with her supporters. It’s a badge of honor that she can wear with pride.

Until it isn’t. The bold demeanor in Congress that made Crockett a formidable figure in the hyperpolarized political cesspool that is Capitol Hill did not translate well back home. In 2026, with the double whammy of being Black and female very much in play, Jasmine Crockett could not win the Democratic Senate primary. Texas state Rep. James Talarico, a white former public-school teacher prevailed with his more familiar brand of white male charisma. He won Tuesday’s primary by a comfortable seven percentage points.

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His unity message—not right vs. left but top vs. bottom—was tinged with Christian teachings spoken in calm and measured tones. It was the balm in Gilead for his Texas voters, fatigued by the relentless negativity spewed over the public arena.

Once Talarico’s traits looked as if they might threaten Republicans’ hold on that Senate seat, it wasn’t surprising that the FCC suddenly developed an intense interest in the long-dead Fairness Doctrine to keep Talarico under wraps. But Stephen Colbert, the still-popular late-night talk show host, outmaneuvered the FCC. Once Colbert made an issue of the FCC’s blatantly political censorship, Talarico waded into his 15 minutes of YouTube fame, confidently dissecting Christian nationalism and supporting a tattered and faded separation-of-church-and-state doctrine as only a Presbyterian seminarian could.

Policy-wise, there wasn’t much to separate Crockett and Talarico, which meant that voters would focus more on intangibles like the candidates’ respective personas. In their late-January debate, they were both cordial and respectful of each other, of the moderators, and, for once, of the (paltry) time limits. In a Texas Tribune Q&A, they both backed stronger AI regulations, Medicare for All (or “Y’all” in Talarico’s plan), and bans on stock trading. They expressed strong support for a version of Texas energy independence, not retreating from the state’s embrace of renewables in the face of the administration’s fierce backpedaling.

The bold demeanor in Congress that made Crockett a formidable figure did not translate well back home.

Talarico had jumped into the race this past September. Already at a disadvantage with a late start—Crockett didn’t declare until early December—her campaign ran into other problems. Talarico outraised her. Crockett did not run many ads. She appealed to younger voters by dropping in at nightclubs in Dallas and Houston. But it’s hard to know if those visits translated into actual votes.

To supplement the solid support she had from Black voters in Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Fort Bend Counties in eastern Texas, Crockett needed something to appeal more broadly to white suburbanites and Latinos—perhaps the poise of Rep. Barbara Jordan or the sly wit of Gov. Ann Richards, two Texas political legends.

“The average age for a Democratic primary voter is 55,” says Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. He notes that Talarico did better than Crockett among older voters, white liberals, women, and Latinos in South Texas and border communities.

On Wednesday, President Trump catapulted into the Republican senatorial runoff shaping up between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Since neither man got 50 percent of the vote, they move to the runoff election on May 26.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune had begged Trump to back Cornyn in what’s almost certain to be a close race. But the president made his usual expected-unexpected decision. He declared that once he decided on a candidate, he’d ask the other person to drop out. But he hasn’t said when he plans to make that decision.

“Whoever he endorses will definitely have the momentum to win in the runoff,” Rottinghaus explains. “It’s also possible that him picking a candidate leads to hard feelings among the voters of the other candidate. That is, if he picks Paxton, Cornyn voters might stay home and vice versa.

“There’s a real risk in that,” Rottinghaus adds. “The real conundrum that the Republicans have is the lack of enthusiasm for these top-of-the-ticket candidates.” Republicans are fearful that they’ll see a result similar to what transpired in Tarrant County. In the Senate District 9 special election for an open seat, Republicans stayed home and Democrat Taylor Rehmet, president of an International Association of Machinists local, won. Republican concerns were compounded by the fact that in this ultraconservative state, more people turned out to vote in the Democrats’ senatorial primary than in the Republicans’.

In other statewide races, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) won his primary in short order and will go up against liberal Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Central Austin) in November. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also won his primary contest. Barring the unforeseen, both men are likely headed back to Austin for fifth terms. Abbott alone has a $90 million campaign war chest.

House primaries featured incumbent Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s loss to the ultraconservative state Rep. Steve Toth in the Second Congressional District Republican primary. His defeat crystalizes the perils for MAGA Republicans like Crenshaw, deemed to be insufficiently committed to the president’s agenda on Ukraine and more. Rep. Tony Gonzales, who admitted on Wednesday to having an affair with a staff member who later killed herself, heads into a runoff against Brandon Herrera, a firearms manufacturer, and faces a House ethics probe back in Washington.

The Democratic primaries spotlighted the generational contest between Rep. Al Green, the 78-year-old State of the Union sign-carrying protester, and Rep. Christian Menefee in the 18th Congressional District, headed to a runoff. The race between Rep. Julie Johnson and former Rep. Colin Allred who’d moved into the 33rd Congressional District after dropping out of the Democratic Senate primary is also headed to a May showdown.

The Talarico win keeps hope alive for Texas Democrats. “Obviously it’s an uphill battle but it bodes well for them to be successful for the first time since the mid-’90s,” explains Rottinghaus. He notes that while affordability and immigration are the key issues, “it’s also what Donald Trump promised but didn’t deliver,” adding, “that’s really true for the Latino vote, where you saw the cratering of support. The Latino vote is the biggest swing vote in the state, and the Republicans have largely squandered the ability to win that vote over.” The likelihood of the GOP bringing those voters back to their banner by November is slim to none.

The Big Lie at the Heart of Republican Electoral Strategy

And yet—how badly can Texas Republicans, masters of the dark arts of voter suppression, muck up election administration? On the basis of Tuesday’s primary in Dallas County, pretty supremely. During the early-voting period there, voters could cast a ballot anywhere in the county. On primary election day, those rules flipped.

The Republicans decided that they wanted to adhere to a regulation forcing people who had not voted during the early-vote period to go to their designated precincts, rather than being able to take advantage of the anywhere-in-the-county rule that had applied during the early-vote period. In order for the countywide locations to be used for March 3 voting, Democratic and Republican county officials had to agree. They didn’t. Williamson County had similar problems.

The Dallas County Democratic Party requested and received a court order from a Dallas County district court judge extending voting; a Williamson County judge issued a similar order. Enter Paxton, the attorney general. He requested the state Supreme Court to set aside that order, which the Republican-dominated court promptly did. Provisional ballots that were cast after the extensions were set aside and not tallied.

A Common Cause official told the Associated Press that those ballots would be counted provided there were no further issues. However, Talarico’s margin of victory appeared much too large for the congresswoman to overcome.

Crockett ended up conceding gracefully. “With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win,” she said.

Read more

A New Age for Houston Politics?

The Democratic primary for Texas’s 18th Congressional District pits two generations of politicians—represented by Christian Menefee and Al Green—against each other.

by Sam Russek

Gabrielle Gurley is a senior editor at The American Prospect. She covers states and cities, focusing on economic development and infrastructure, elections, and climate. She wins awards, too, most recently picking up a 2024 NABJ award for coverage of Baltimore and a 2021 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication urban journalism award for her feature story on the pandemic public transit crisis.