On her way back to Capitol Hill, Jasmine Crockett shared a message for her supporters congratulating James Talarico on his primary win: “This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee. Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect democrats up and down the ballot.”
While that was exactly what she needed to do, there is a needed space to grieve the moment. James Talarico’s nomination is as bittersweet as political victories come. With Talarico’s win, Texas Democrats have gained a candidate versed in what has been perverted by the Trump regime, but they have lost a fighter in Jasmine Crockett. Crockett was more than mere boots on the ground. She didn’t mind using those boots to assuage the Trump administration’s ongoing onslaught against the Constitution. She was and is “Texas Tough!”
As she wrapped her Fort Worth campaign stop a few weeks ago, I heard something I felt we would need from her if she didn’t win the Democratic Senate nomination over James Talarico. The congresswoman didn’t offer it as concessionary comfort, but it was worth writing down. Three simple words spoke a greater depth to anything said in the nearly hourlong Q&A session.
“Keep the Faith…”
Though I didn’t ask questions at the rally, I had only one question in mind and it involved the possibility of today’s reality. “What happens if Jasmine Crockett is not on the ballot in November?” That was my question and it is probably good that I did not to ask it. Though aware of this possibility, many voters were ill-prepared for it to be a reality. Crockett galvanized segments of her voter base who normally sit out elections, including primaries. In speaking with the gathered audience, Crockett shared that her strategy was to engage voters because the difference in many races upending dismal norms is voter turnout. With more than two million votes cast for them, Crockett and James Talarico dominated the primary ballot and rightfully so. Talarico will now face the winner of a May 26th runoff between incumbent John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in November.
Chaos and Controversy at Dallas County Polls
Jasmine Crockett has work to do, and she did just that. She returned to Capitol Hill to grill “cruel” Kristi Noem and hold her accountable for the atrocities under her leadership as Secretary of Homeland Security. But for voters here at home in Texas, the political outlook was as gloomy as the sky outside. Today is reminiscent of election results following Hillary Clinton‘s failed presidential bid. How could the more experienced, more prepared candidate not win? Democracy works that way. People have the right to choose the candidate of their choice and sometimes the results are shocking. Sometimes, political progress begins as disappointing election results. Still, this political grief is reminiscent of the dejection felt for Shirley Chisolm, Stacey Abrams and, most recently, Kamala Harris. Black women who were the best option but not the chosen to be the answer.
In a December interview with Crockett, I asked her to speak to undecided voters who needed to find the edge between the two of them. Here’s what Congresswoman Crockett had to say about what set her apart from James Talarico: “This is about:
- Experience.
- I work with James on the state level, but I’m the only one that has federal experience.
- We definitely cannot afford to get behind.
- We need somebody who’s already been working with those on the federal level, but also we need somebody that can win.
And so at the end of the day, because of all the work that I’ve done traveling this country on behalf of other candidates, I made sure that I made a lot of phone calls making sure that people were ready to help us do the lift. Those relationships over the past years, whether we’re talking about a former vice president or whether we’re talking about a former president of the United States and so many others…calling in on Stacey Abrams, somebody that unfortunately I’m sure she’s going to be tired of how many times I’m blowing her up trying to figure out what exactly did y’all do in Georgia again? Because we’ve got to get it done. Those relationships will allow this to be a race that not only Texans are involved in, but the entire country is going to be involved in. And that’s exactly what this seat means because this seat is bigger than Texas. Imagine that, something being bigger than Texas! This is about our democracy. It is about saving our country. And so because of the relationship. country. And so, because of the relationships that I’ve made, that’s just something that’s unique.“
Crockett remained complimentary of Talarico and continued, “One of the things that we looked at was my name ID. My name ID is just as high as our elected senator who’s been elected for almost 30 years statewide. So when we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to spend money, we can spend money more efficiently because while James Tallarico’s (I have nothing bad to say about him), name ID is low, that means that we have to invest our dollars in getting his name ID up before we can start to get people out.
It is hard to imagine how we’re going to expand the electorate if we have to start at ground zero. With me, at least we start at about third base. And so it’s just more so about letting people know about the bipartisan work that I’ve done because I’m known for my clashes. But that’s because, don’t come for Texas. Don’t mess with Texas, okay? That is real!
At the same time, the things that I’ve done in a bipartisan way, even with John Cornyn, are things we get to kind of move on to talking to people about as well as making sure that we can just focus on pulling people out that have never participated in the process. That is something that I feel we can do because we’re getting messages from people that say, ‘we’ve never paid attention to politics, but we’re so excited for an opportunity to vote for you!'”
The heaviness in the aftermath of this race is easily palpable. However, hope is still in the air. With Democratic support firmly behind James Talarico, a unified focus encourages voters to “keep the faith.” What I heard Jasmine Crockett say on that stage in Fort Worth was not something to cheer up dejected voters, it was a challenge. Like many others, I felt she was the presumptive challenger to John Cornyn. Now that she is not, these words ring louder and truer for all of us wondering how the race got here and where to go from here.
“Keep the faith. The best bart of this country is the people, not necessarily the leaders. Don’t let them get you down. We are better than they could ever hope to be. We have corruption at the highest levels but that’s not a reflection of us, that is a reflection of them. We’re going to show them that we are better than this and at this time in our country, we’re going to stand on the right side of history.” Democratic voters’ chance to do that comes again in November with James Talarico as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.
