Rep. Jasmine Crockett says she will campaign "downballot" instead of helping the man who beat her win the Texas Senate seat Democrats haven't held since 1988, a split that could hand Republicans an easy hold.
Crockett made the declaration on CNN's Laura Coates Live, telling the host flatly that she has no plans to appear alongside James Talarico, the Democratic state senator who defeated her by six points in the party's Senate primary earlier this year. Asked directly whether she would campaign with her former rival, Crockett declined and redirected, the Washington Examiner reported.
Her stated reason: she wants to spend her time "amplifying" candidates who "maybe are getting overshadowed." She also said she didn't "think that there is excitement" from Black voters in Texas this cycle, a blunt assessment that doubles as an indictment of the man her party chose to carry its banner against Republican Ken Paxton.
The refusal is not new, but it is escalating. Crockett has previously called the primary a "racist race." She declined an invitation to speak on Talarico's behalf at the Texas Democratic Party Convention and skipped the event entirely, according to Fox News. She told the Dallas Morning News she had "no idea" whether she would support Talarico in November.
For a party trying to win a Texas Senate seat for the first time in nearly four decades, that is a problem no poll can paper over.
Talarico beat Crockett 52.4 percent to 46.2 percent in a primary that AP News described as expensive and fiercely contested. Crockett's campaign alleged voting irregularities and announced plans to sue over voting issues in Dallas, with the congresswoman telling supporters on election night:
"People have been disenfranchised."
Voting had been extended in Dallas County and Williamson County after voters reported being turned away and directed to different precincts under new primary rules. The legal challenge added an extra layer of bitterness to a race already defined by accusations about race and representation.
Race itself became a central fault line. Fox News reported that some white voters tearfully admitted they voted for Talarico over Crockett because they believed Texas was "too racist" to elect a Black woman, a dynamic that left Crockett's supporters feeling the party had abandoned them for electability calculations.
That wound has not closed. Crockett's refusal to commit to helping Talarico has only hardened over the months since the primary.
On paper, Democrats have reason for cautious optimism. A poll released last week by Texas Public Opinion Research, described as a nonpartisan organization, showed Talarico holding a six-point lead over Paxton in the general election matchup.
The crosstabs tell a more complicated story. Paxton leads among white voters and voters over 55, the most reliable turnout groups in a midterm. Talarico's advantage rests on Black voters, Latino voters, younger voters, college-educated voters, and women. Those are coalitions that need motivation to show up, and Crockett just told CNN she doesn't see the excitement.
When the candidate who ran as the champion of Black political power in Texas says Black voters aren't energized, that is not a pundit's speculation. It is a warning from someone who knows the electorate firsthand. Democratic strategists have already flagged Black voter frustration as a threat to Talarico's viability.
Crockett's posture goes beyond passive-aggressive silence. The New York Post reported that she refused Talarico's invitation to speak at the state convention, calling it an "afterthought invite." She said she wouldn't decide which races to help until September or October. And she publicly cast doubt on whether Talarico can flip the state at all.
Crockett pointed to a telling detail: national Democrats have not decided to dump money into Texas either, suggesting the party's own leadership doesn't view the Lone Star State Senate race as winnable.
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, won his own bruising Republican primary fight. He and Rep. Wesley Hunt challenged incumbent Sen. John Cornyn from the right, with Newsmax reporting that Cornyn and allied groups spent at least $64 million in TV advertising trying to hold off the MAGA-aligned challengers. Cornyn ultimately fell, the first Texas Republican senator in history not to be renominated.
Paxton emerged from that contest with a base that is energized and unified behind him. Talarico emerged from his with an opponent who publicly refuses to help him win.
The contrast matters because Texas hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. Winning requires everything to go right, high turnout among young voters and minorities, crossover appeal in the suburbs, and a unified party pushing in the same direction. Crockett's refusal removes one of those legs.
And the primary's racial dynamics make the fracture harder to heal. When Crockett calls the contest a "racist race," she is signaling to her supporters, many of them Black voters in Dallas and Houston, that the party chose a white candidate over a Black woman for reasons that had nothing to do with policy. That is not a message Talarico can answer with a convention speech or a joint campaign stop, especially when the woman making the accusation won't share a stage with him.
The irony is that before the primary, Kamala Harris recorded a robocall endorsing Crockett, urging voters to "turn Texas blue." The Washington Free Beacon noted that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was also backing Crockett in the primary, believing her controversial remarks, including calling Gov. Greg Abbott "Governor Hot Wheels," made her easier to defeat in a general election. Republicans wanted Crockett as the nominee. They got something arguably better: a Crockett who lost and refuses to go away quietly.
Talarico has already faced hostile crowds at town halls where the coalition fractures were on full display. The general election hasn't even entered its final stretch, and his own party's base is splintering in front of cameras.
Crockett's CNN appearance laid bare three problems for Texas Democrats at once. Their most prominent Black elected official in the state won't campaign for the nominee. She says Black voters aren't excited. And she's pointing out that national party money hasn't followed the polls.
A six-point polling lead means nothing if the voters behind it don't show up. Paxton's coalition, white voters and seniors, doesn't need motivating. They vote in midterms. Talarico's coalition, younger, more diverse, more sporadic, does. And the person best positioned to motivate them just told the country she'll be elsewhere.
Paxton himself has warned that losing the Texas Senate seat would cost Republicans the chamber. If Democrats can't unify behind their own nominee, that warning starts to sound less like a rallying cry and more like an unnecessary one.
Democrats spent decades dreaming about turning Texas blue. They finally got a Senate nominee with a polling lead, and the woman he beat is doing more to help Ken Paxton than any Republican surrogate could.