Rep. Jasmine Crockett is publicly refusing to rally behind the man who beat her for the Texas Democratic Senate nomination, casting doubt on James Talarico's ability to turn the state blue.
Crockett, the Dallas Democrat who lost the March primary to Talarico by more than seven points, told NBC's Sahil Kapur that she sees no sign either national party committee views the Texas Senate seat as competitive, and she is not planning to lift a finger for her former rival until she decides the race is worth her time.
Her blunt assessment lands at a moment when Texas Democrats can least afford a fractured front. Talarico, a 36-year-old state lawmaker and Presbyterian seminarian from Austin, defeated Crockett with 53 percent of the vote to her 45.7 percent on March 3, drawing strength from the Austin area and rural parts of the state. He now faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a general election that two recent polls show within the margin of error.
And Crockett is treating the whole thing like someone else's problem.
Crockett's skepticism rests on a simple metric: cash. She told Kapur she watches where the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee place their bets, and right now neither organization is writing checks for Texas. Breitbart reported her full explanation:
"When I look at the money, if Republicans start spending money in Texas, then I'll be convinced. But right now, national Republicans decided they wanted to dump money into North Carolina, as well as Georgia. That's where they're fighting, and national Democrats have not decided to dump money into Texas either."
She went further, saying both committees' silence tells her their private polling matches her gut feeling.
"I look at: where does the NRSC stand? Where does DSCC stand? Right now, neither one are investing, which tells me that their internals are saying the same thing. So it looks like status quo."
"Status quo" is a polite way of saying Texas stays red. And Crockett is not pretending otherwise.
The distance between Crockett and Talarico is not just rhetorical. Newsmax reported that Crockett has not returned a phone call from Talarico and skipped the Texas Democratic convention in Corpus Christi, dismissing his invitation to speak there as "an afterthought invite."
When asked directly whether she would support Talarico, Crockett did not hedge, she deflected. "I have no idea. I am more focused on down-ballot races in general," she said.
That posture is remarkable for a member of Congress whose party is trying to win a statewide seat in the nation's second-largest state. Crockett's concession statement back in March struck a different tone entirely. "Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person," she said at the time, as Just The News reported.
Five months later, the unity talk has evaporated.
Crockett said she would not start evaluating which races deserve her ground-level help until "maybe end of September, October, as I start to dig into which races I'm going to help out in, the races that I really feel like we can win." That timeline gives Talarico roughly five weeks of potential Crockett involvement before Election Day, if she decides he is worth it at all.
Crockett's reluctance to back Talarico carries an edge that goes beyond ordinary sore-loser politics. In July, she publicly attributed her primary defeat to racial bias. "The reality is that there was a lot of races, not a lot, it was racist. It was a racist race. It is what it is, right?" she said. "But we live in America as y'all are celebrating 250, okay? We know what this country is."
The accusation hung in the air without specifics. Talarico, who is white, beat Crockett, who is Black, by running on a message of unity and faith-based politics rather than her combative anti-Trump style. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who had initially backed Crockett, switched her endorsement to Talarico after the result. Talarico raised $2.5 million after an FCC controversy canceled his Late Show appearance, and the online segment drew 9 million views.
Crockett framed her contribution to the party differently. "The best thing that I can do for James Talarico isn't me standing on a stage with him," she said. "It is the fact that I endorsed five candidates in the runoff who all happen to be black men in the state of Texas and every single one of them won."
In other words, Crockett sees her value as a kingmaker in down-ballot races, not as a team player for the man who took the nomination from her. Democratic strategists have already warned that Black voter frustration could undermine Talarico's Senate bid, and Crockett's posture does nothing to ease that concern.
Two recent surveys paint the Texas Senate race as genuinely competitive on paper. A Wedgewood Polls survey put Talarico ahead of Paxton 48 percent to 46 percent. A Texas Southern University poll found a similar split, 47 percent to 45 percent. Both amount to a nominal two-point edge for the Democrat, well within the zone where turnout and enthusiasm decide the outcome.
But the composition of the remaining undecided voters matters. The uncommitted block centers on right-leaning voters who traditionally vote Republican, meaning Paxton has a natural reservoir of support still sitting on the sideline. If those voters come home, as they typically do in Texas, Talarico's slim lead disappears.
Crockett's refusal to campaign for Talarico compounds the problem on the other side of the ledger. Without a unified Democratic coalition, Talarico cannot afford to leave any of his own base voters unmotivated. And fractures within the Democratic coalition have already surfaced in public settings across the state.
Talarico has staked out positions that play well with progressive activists but may alienate the moderate and center-right voters he needs in a general election. He has made remarks about "God being nonbinary," called bills banning puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical procedures for minors a form of "Christofascism," and argued that the Bible "demands" government-run health insurance, going so far as to claim the New Testament mandates Obamacare.
Those are positions tailor-made for a Democratic primary. In a general election in Texas, against a Republican attorney general working to consolidate traditional GOP voters, they become liabilities. Crockett does not need to say that out loud. Her silence says it for her.
Crockett's own record has generated its share of controversy. She drew sharp criticism for comments on her podcast about the Karmelo Anthony murder case, and Texas Republicans seized on her response to the verdict. But whatever baggage Crockett carries, it is Talarico who needs her voters, not the other way around.
The New York Post characterized Crockett's posture as lingering bitterness, noting her refusal to return Talarico's call and her convention snub. Whether it is bitterness, calculation, or both, the effect is the same: the Democratic nominee in the second-largest state in the country cannot count on the most prominent Democrat he defeated to show up for him.
Texas Democrats spent years promising the state was on the verge of turning blue. Now their own side cannot agree that the race is even worth fighting.