In a grueling 10-stop campaign swing through San Antonio on Sunday, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) drew out thousands of Democratic Party faithful far from her home base, lifted up a lesser-known candidate for Texas governor and made her case for mounting a statewide campaign some in the party would rather she\u2019d skipped.
\nCrockett, a 44-year-old civil rights attorney, has been a fast-rising rising star in a Democratic Party that\u2019s eager to see its leaders fighting back in the era of President Donald Trump.
\nBut the power of her personal brand is being put to the test after launching a last-minute U.S. Senate bid on the day of the Dec. 8 filing deadline \u2014 a response to Republicans\u2019 mid-cycle redistricting effort that drew her out of her Dallas-area congressional district.
\nThe potential for national money and support for the Senate race drew interest from nearly all of the state\u2019s best-known Democrats at various points this election cycle, including U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio), former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas), and 2018 Senate candidate Beto O\u2019Rourke, who once huddled amongst themselves to divide up the various statewide contests on the ballot in 2026.
\nYet it\u2019s Crockett who now leads in public polling for the March 3 Democratic primary with just weeks to go before early voting starts Feb. 17.
\nHer popularity with the Democratic base was enough to pressure Allred into folding his well-funded Senate bid and run for Congress instead.
\nThat leaves Crockett up against state Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock), a popular former teacher with a big social media following who launched his campaign in September, and a perennial candidate from the Houston area, Ahmad Hassan, whose string of unsuccessful campaigns includes a recent U.S. Senate bid in Minnesota.
\nThe congresswoman\u2019s campaign bus makes a stop at New Creation Christian Fellowship on her swing through San Antonio while campaigning for U.S. Senate on Sunday. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio ReportOn Sunday, Crockett\u2019s nascent campaign rolled into San Antonio for one of its first big events since launching her statewide bid in Dallas on Dec. 8.
\nFor a candidate wagering that Democrats\u2019 best shot at flipping Texas involves giving its voters inspiring candidates rather than winning over the political middle, she drew scores of fans posing for pictures with her tour bus and waiting in lines out the door to see her.
\n\u201cI know people have sold us so many times, we gonna turn blue, we gonna turn blue, we gonna turn blue, and then we see Election Day, and it\u2019s not blue,\u201d Crockett told the roughly 200 supporters packed into Tony G\u2019s Soul Food restaurant on the East Side.
\n\u201cBut I believe we are [on the cusp]. We are voter-suppressed, and we\u2019ve not been excited,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt is my goal that you stay excited and engaged in this election, and I\u2019m gonna do my part.\u201d
\nAn outsider\u2019s approach
\nIn non-presidential election years like 2026, members of Congress and the Texas House are all up for reelection \u2014 election cycles that are often referendums on the party controlling the White House and cause its members to lose seats.
\nGiven such conditions, Texas Democrats who haven\u2019t won a statewide race in more than three decades have competitive primaries underway for nearly every statewide position on the ballot this March \u2014 from the governor\u2019s race on down.
\nWhile many of the party\u2019s top strategists believe still believe their future involves winning over some Republicans, Crockett\u2019s unabashedly progressive brand has never been more embraced by fellow Democratic candidates.
\nThe Missouri native got her start in the Texas House just six years ago after opening her own legal practice in Dallas, where her clients includedBlack Lives Matter protesters. She won an uphill Democratic primary runoff by just 90 votes that year, and by her own telling, came into the role with little political experience.
\n\u201cThat first term, man I was green,\u201d she told the gathering at Tony G\u2019s. \u201cI really thought that the only reason that we had jacked-up laws was because the people that were writing them didn\u2019t know what they were doing. So I thought I could roll in and be like, \u2018Listen, I\u2019ve been in these courtrooms, and this doesn\u2019t work.’\u201d
\nWhile that approach didn\u2019t win her many friends in the conservative-dominated Texas House, it did earn Crockett the respect of longtime U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas), who cited her \u201chigh energy,\u201d \u201cpassion to fight\u201d and \u201cshrewd intelligence\u201d when endorsing her as a successor in 2022\u2014 passing over a favorite of the party establishment who had been patiently waiting in the wings.
\nCrockett would go on to take Congress by storm, leveraging positions on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees to become a regular foil of GOP leaders on national TV. At times, that\u2019s involved delving into the personal attacks that have become more common in the era of Trump.
\n\u201cI had no idea that there would be a woman serving out of the state of Georgia that would have the audacity to talk about my lashes,\u201d Crockett recalled of her viral feuds with conservative firebrand U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).
\nAsked at another event how she planned to bring others along with her ideas in a Republican-controlled Senate, Crockett quipped, \u201cmost people don\u2019t know me for my agreements, I\u2019m better known for my disagreements.\u201d
\nTexas Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins introduces gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa during Jasmine Crockett\u2019s campaign stop. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio ReportBy Sunday, however, fellow Democrats were hardly shying away from Crockett\u2019s sharp-elbowed brand of politics.
\nTwo former colleagues from the Texas Legislature appeared beside her at Tony G\u2019s, state Reps. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) and Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio), who each face their own Democratic primaries this year. Hinojosa is seeking her party\u2019s nomination for governor, while Gervin-Hawkins is trying to fend off two young Democratic challengers.
\nAsked by the San Antonio Report why Democrats had worked to dissuade Crockett from entering this race, Gervin-Hawkins, who stopped short of making an endorsement in the Senate race, blamed outdated institutional wisdom.
\n\u201cI think the bottom line is obvious, people believe that a Black woman cannot win statewide, or maybe even a woman in general,\u201d Gervin-Hawkins said. \u201cI think she does have some challenges, but I also believe she\u2019s got enough fight in her to overcome them.\u201d
\nAn abbreviated race
\nIn total, Crockett\u2019s whirlwind tour included stops at six San Antonio-area churches, a gathering with supporters at Tony G\u2019s, a \u201ccommunity conversation\u201d\u00a0at New Creation Christian Fellowship in Windcrest and a final rally at Southtown\u2019s Taco Haven. When that event ended after 9 p.m., her campaign said she was she headed out to visit a fire station that same night, all before hitting a prayer breakfast with Gervin-Hawkins Monday morning and flying out of San Antonio International Airport to get back to D.C.
\n\u201cI had the best reelection numbers of any sitting member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, when I just got reelected to the U.S. House,\u201d Crockett told roughly 200 supporters packed into the Eastside restaurant on Sunday afternoon. \u201c\u2026 I\u2019m definitely not worried about my district. That\u2019s why I\u2019m in San Antonio right now.\u201d
\nCongresswoman Jasmine Crockett makes an appearance at Tony G\u2019s, a soul food restaurant, while campaigning for senator on January 11. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio ReportSo hectic was the schedule that her campaign briefly closed off a glass room at Tony G\u2019s so that she could shovel in a quick lunch before speaking to another crowd. In an interview between events, Crockett acknowledged the challenge of a quick-turnaround campaign \u2014 all while Congress is largely in session.
\nThe House just concluded a long fight over extending health care subsidies, something Democrats viewed as critical for their constituents, and lawmakers are now turning to the next looming funding deadline.
\n\u201cI think that it\u2019s so important that I\u2019m in D.C. right now, especially as we are heading most likely to another government shutdown,\u201d she told the San Antonio Report. \u201cI can\u2019t say \u2018Hey, I want you to trust me to do another job on the federal level\u2019 if I fail to show up in one that I\u2019ve already been hired to do.\u201d
\nAttendees pray at New Creation Christian Fellowship on January 11. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio ReportAt the heart of the abbreviated race, however, is a situation that Republicans helped to manufacture.
\nFacing their own bruising U.S. Senate primary \u2014 and an otherwise tough midterm election overall \u2014 the GOP\u2019s mid-cycle redistricting effort not only made some blue congressional seats more red, but also moved boundaries so that several Democratic incumbents, including Crockett, were no longer in their safe blue seats.
\nCrockett testified on the matter, saying she was left with a choice of moving or asking voters to support someone who doesn\u2019t live there. Instead, she polled the U.S. Senate race and another door opened.
\n\u201cSome people say, \u2018Well Congresswoman, you should just stay in the House, because we need your voice. We need to make sure you\u2019re going to be there because Texas likes to do Texas things, we can\u2019t afford to lose you in this moment,’\u201d Crockett told the crowd at Tony G\u2019s. \u201cBut I never signed up for public office to be anybody\u2019s safety blanket. I signed up because I wanted to make change.\u201d
\nThe Supreme Court confirmed the new districts just days before the Dec. 8 filing deadline, and Crockett, whose Dallas home would be far from her 30th Congressional District\u2019s new boundaries, launched her U.S. Senate campaign with just hours to spare.
\n\u201cLord knows I was hoping that my numbers would tell me to get behind somebody else [in the Democratic Senate primary],\u201d she told the roughly 1,000 supporters packed in to see her in Windcrest on Sunday evening. \u201cMy numbers didn\u2019t tell me that. So here it is, I\u2019m running.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a grueling 10-stop campaign swing through San Antonio on Sunday, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) drew out thousands of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.demoviewer4.com\/keith-ponder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}