Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett Launches Senate Bid In Texas

WASHINGTON ― Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) launched a bid for the U.S. Senate in Texas, according to multiple reports, shaking up the Democratic primary to unseat Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that already includes state Rep. James Talarico.

In another bombshell move just hours earlier on Monday, Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) said he would be dropping out of the Senate race to run against Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson in a newly drawn House district in Texas. His decision to abandon his campaign, which he announced in July, came amid reports that Crockett was preparing to jump into the fray.

Crockett, a 44-year-old first-term congresswoman, has earned plenty of fans on the left due to her viral attacks against President Donald Trump and combative exchanges with fellow Republican lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee, including conservative GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). A progressive, Crockett is also known for her advocacy as a civil rights attorney in underrepresented communities in her Dallas-area district.

Still, some Democrats fear that Crockett would be too liberal of a Senate candidate for Texas, a red state they’ve sought to flip for several cycles. Crockett has generated plenty of controversy, calling Texas Greg Abbott (R), who uses a wheelchair, “Governor Hot Wheels,” and recently accusing Republicans of accepting campaign contributions from a man named Jeffrey Epstein who turned out not to be the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

National Republicans are also ecstatic that Crockett has entered the race. Cornyn has practically begged the congresswoman to launch a Senate bid for months, believing that if he can survive a tough GOP primary from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) next year, his path to reelection would be all but assured in the general election.

“She’s unelectable in Texas,” Cornyn predicted to HuffPost in October. “She obviously gets a lot of attention in the press and because she says crazy things. But I think if she were to run in the primary, obviously, it would sort of exacerbate the problem Democrats are having generally. They become a poster child for the party as a whole.”

Crockett will be setting up a high-stakes battle with the center-left Democratic candidate in Talarico, who is widely seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party.

The congresswoman told CNN that her ability to raise large sums of money and appeal to voters in Black and Latino communities could help Democrats flip the Texas Senate seat.

“I’m not crazy,” Crockett said. “It’s weird that people believe that I could win the races that I won and I’m just like out here willy-nilly.”

Allred, a former NFL player and his party’s Senate nominee last cycle, said Monday that a bitter Democratic primary would harm the party’s chances of flipping the seat next year.

“I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified,” he wrote on Monday.