Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s decision to enter the Texas Senate race has solved what could have been a real problem for the Republicans in 2026. Her Monday announcement that she would compete against a prominent and relatively moderate candidate in the Democrat primary may have already guaranteed that the seat currently held by Republican John Cornyn will remain in GOP hands after next year’s midterms.
Cornyn first won that seat in 2002, but is in the midst of a bruising primary challenge heading into next year. If Democrats were to unite behind a candidate perceived as moderate, it may give the liberal party its best chance yet to achieve their long-sought goal of winning in the Lone Star State. Now that the unabashedly radical left-wing Crockett is in the race, however, she has a good chance of winning the Democrat nomination – and will almost certainly then lose the general election to whomever the GOP nominates.
Just before she announced her Senate run, Crockett talked to former Democrat Congressman Colin Allred, who promptly dropped his bid for the seat to avoid a nasty primary. Now, to win the Democrat nomination, all Crockett has to do is defeat James Talarico, a state legislator.
Crockett, famous for her rabble-rousing persona and expletive-laden tirades on the House floor, is far better known than Talarico in both Texas and nationwide. She appears set to have a decisive fundraising edge and will dominate news coverage, putting any potential challenger at an immediate disadvantage.
Unfortunately for Crockett, however, she suffers from a fatal malady that contributed to the decisive defeats of former Vice President Kamala Harris last year and Tennessee legislator Aftyn Behn just days ago.
Crockett, like Harris and Behn, has gifted the Republicans with an extensive video record of her far left – if not outright crazy – positions. During a time when many Americans are worried about high crime levels, for example, she offered this nugget of wisdom: “Just because someone has committed a crime it doesn’t make them a criminal. Being a criminal is more so about your mindset.”
While discussing the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal aliens, Crockett also delivered this nonsense: “When I see ICE, I see slave patrols.” It gets worse. Here’s an excerpt from the diatribe with which she announced her Senate run:
I’m done with politics as usual. I’m done watching rural hospitals and public schools close their doors. I’m done watching parents be afraid to send their kids to school or the mall or the movies because Republicans have flooded our streets with guns. I’m done with the senators sitting around doing nothing while Trump takes your hard-earned money, skims your Social Security, slashes Medicare, and gives tax breaks to billionaires. I’m done watching the American Dream on life support while Trump tries to pull the plug.
This stuff is so detached from reality that it even worries the pundits at The Washington Post: “Crockett’s late entry to the race has led to concern that the Democrats are wasting the opportunity. She can rile up the Democratic base and score points with resistance-aligned liberals. But she has never won a competitive general election.”
Crockett represents the Texas 30th Congressional District, a majority-minority House district in which she faced no Republican opponent in 2024 and only token opposition in 2022. Now that the Texas congressional map has been redrawn, Crockett no longer lives in the district, thus the impetus for her Senate bid.
But running for statewide office in Texas is a big challenge for any Democrat, particularly for a controversial candidate like Crockett. Indeed, the last time anyone from Crockett’s party accomplished this feat was 30 years ago.
The last Democrat challenger that Senator Cornyn faced (in 2020) lost by just under 10 points. His approval rating has declined in recent years, however, which has prompted serious primary challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt.
This had created some hope for Democrats. The president’s party typically struggles in midterm years. If Republicans, further demoralized following a rough primary, stay home while Democrats maximize turnout among their base and among Independents, they may have a real shot.
But nominating Crockett would crush those hopes. Republicans may not turn out to vote for a GOP candidate whom they voted against in the primary, but they will certainly turn out to vote against Jasmine Crockett.
Crockett, for her part, believes she can win by appealing to low-propensity voters, according to a report in the Houston Defender: “Our goal is to engage people that historically have not been talked to, because there are so many people that get ignored — specifically in Texas.”
But the Texas Tribune quotes Democrat strategist Eric Koch as follows: “This is not a base mobilization election—Trump carried Texas by 14 points—it’s about who can create a big enough coalition to win.” It’s unlikely that she can broaden the coalition if she continues doing outrageous things like mocking disabled Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as “Governor Hot Wheels.”
Crockett believes she can mobilize enough voters to win because, as she told CNN, “61 percent of Texans are people of color.” That includes Latinos, whom she accused last year of having a “slave mentality” if they voted for Trump. (She later tried to walk that back when CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her about it during an interview.)
But Crockett will obviously have trouble with everyday Texans if she continues to say things like this: “Only 39 percent of this state is Anglo [white]. How are 60 percent of the seats Anglo? We need to flip the numbers.” Even non-white voters don’t appreciate such a shameless appeal to sectarian identity politics.
Democrats have long fantasized about turning Texas blue. But Jasmine Crockett is a bad candidate, and her policies are worse. She is, for example, all-in for slavery reparations despite the general unpopularity of the idea among most voters (opposition has hovered around 70 percent for many years). Crockett has also mused about imposing reparations by ending income taxes for people whom she describes as “black folk.”
Until she entered the Senate race, the Republicans were indeed a little worried about losing Cornyn’s seat. But Christmas came early, and it looks like the Democrat propensity for nominating the most radical, unlikable candidate in the field could soon lock up the Lone Star State for the GOP.
David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange and a variety of other publications.
