U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, speaks to supporters announcing her run in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Dallas.
LM Otero/Associated Press
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, protests redistricting plans before the hearing of the House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting at the Capitol in Austin, Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett speaks during a rally featuring California Governor Gavin Newsomm in Houston, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. Newsom touted the passing of Proposition 50, which allows California to redraw all of its congressional districts in response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s plans to redistrict Texas for President Donald Trump.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett takes the stage during a rally featuring California Governor Gavin Newsomm in Houston, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. Newsom touted the passing of Proposition 50, which allows California to redraw all of its congressional districts in response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s plans to redistrict Texas for President Donald Trump.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Less than a month after entering the Democratic race for U.S. Senate, Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has emerged as the favorite — among Republicans.
President Donald Trump has branded her as “low IQ.” U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana has suggested she’s hearing “voices in her head,” and Vice President JD Vance has poked fun at her appearance and her public image.
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“Oh Jasmine Crockett,” Vance said in a mocking tone in December at the annual convention for the conservative organization, Turning Point USA, in Phoenix. “The record speaks for itself. She wants to be a senator, though her street-girl persona is about as real as her nails.”
READ MORE: Fighter or preacher: Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico lay out dueling styles in Senate primary
While some detractors within the Democratic Party have said Republicans see the outspoken and unabashedly liberal Crockett as easier to beat in the general election than state Rep. James Talarico of Austin, the one-time public defender who set aside her law practice to enter politics says the GOP has painted the target on her back out of fear.
“The (polls) are clear that I am the clear front-runner to make it through this primary,” Crockett, 44, said at a holiday season virtual news conference. “It also tells me that they are very nervous. Instead of waiting, they want to attack right now to see if they have the ability to drive up the unfavorables on me to the extent that maybe they can help Talarico make it over the hump.”
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A native of St. Louis and the daughter of a Methodist minister, Crockett took a circuitous route to prominence in Texas politics. She attended parochial schools in Missouri and later earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Rhodes College in Memphis, a private institution affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. She had planned to become a certified public accountant, or perhaps an anesthesiologist.
But instead, Crockett switched her focus to the law on the advice of a Rhodes professor who had recruited her to join the school’s mock trial team. After earning her law degree from the University of Houston, she moved to East Texas and worked in the Bowie County public defender’s office. Then in private practice, she represented people arrested during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Dallas.
READ MORE: The biggest Texas races to watch heading into this year’s midterms
In 2020, Crockett entered the race for the Texas House as a political novice whose grassroots campaign stressed her progressivism and her independence. That meant challenging an incumbent Democrat who had recently won the special election to succeed Eric Johnson, who left the Legislature after being elected mayor of Dallas. Crockett came in second to state Rep. Lorraine Birabil in the primary, but with enough votes forced a runoff. She went on to win that race by the razor-thin margin of 110 votes.
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During her first term in the state House, Crockett launched a bid for Congress when longtime U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson announced plans to retire ahead of the 2022 election cycle. Crockett entered a crowded Democratic primary, but with one advantage no other candidate could match: Johnson’s enthusiastic endorsement. Johnson said her heavily Black district needed “a representative in Washington with high energy, a passion to fight for us.”
“I firmly believe that Texas State Representative Jasmine Crockett is just the person we need in Congress at this critical time,” said Johnson, who died in December 2023.
Crockett, who won the 2022 general election with 75% of the vote and was reelected two years later with 85%, made a late entry into the U.S. Senate primary, rocking what had looked like a settled field. Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who was seeking a comeback after losing the 2024 Senate race to Republican Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race the day Crockett joined and instead filed to run for Congress.
That put Crockett and Talarico on a collision course. In Crockett’s Dec. 8 announcement, she made no mention of her chief primary opponent. Instead, she opened fire on Trump with a video that mocked the president’s insults that had been directed toward her.
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READ MORE: Texas politicians had a big year in 2025. Here’s who gained ground — and who didn’t.
But during the recent call with reporters, she sought to draw a contrast with Talarico, whose strategy so far has been to showcase himself as a candidate who can can peel off Republicans and independents who feel duped by the president’s promise to revitalize the economy.
“I don’t think doing the things that make people feel like somebody is ‘Republican lite’ is the winning path,” she said. “We’ve definitely tried that. I think the winning path is having someone that people believe will fight for them.”
Whoever wins the March 3 Democratic primary will advance to November against either four-term incumbent John Conryn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton or U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston.
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READ MORE: New poll shows Jasmine Crockett leading James Talarico in Democratic primary
Recent polling has shown Crockett leading Talarico by single digits among Democrats. However, a statewide poll by Change Research, a left-leaning firm, taken just after Crockett formally entered the Senate race and that sampled all voters, suggested she’d face a rocky general election campaign. While 48% of the respondents who had heard of Talarico viewed him positively and 18% viewed him negatively, 48% of respondents familiar with Crockett had an unfavorable impression compared with the 40% who viewed her positively.
In addition, 49% of all respondents said they “would definitely not” vote for her in November 2026. Those numbers could mean Crockett’s presence on the ballot might supercharge GOP turnout, said Stephen Clermont, Change Research’s director of polling.
“When you come into a race and you are well known and polarizing, that is the downside risk,” Clermont said.
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The poll was commissioned by the Texas-based Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund, a group working to flip Texas blue that is not taking part in the U.S. Senate primary.
State Rep. Ron Reynolds, whose desk in the Texas House chamber neighbored Crockett’s in 2021, acknowledged that Republicans might be itching for his former colleague to be the face of the state Democratic Party in 2026. But, he added, the GOP should be careful of what it wishes for. He predicted that Democratic-leaning Texans who had given up on ever winning a statewide election would return to the ballot box with Crockett leading the ticket.
“There’s a lot of people who simply don’t vote. I think Congresswoman Crockett could be a catalyst for a larger turnout,” said Reynolds, D-Houston. “They’ll go and vote for her because they believe that she represents that fight and that spirit, that scrappy spirit, that they think is missing.”
READ MORE: With the new year, Texas politics is about to shift into high gear
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In campaign appearances and media interviews, the 36-year-old Talarico has sought to thread together the twin messages of being both a fighter and a unifier. Given that every Texas Democratic candidate in a statewide race since 1994 has been rejected by a majority of voters, Talarico has said it stands to reason that the party must broaden its appeal.
Crockett said that while she does not plan to write off potential votes from Republicans and independents, the Democrats’ prime target should be moving disaffected and forgotten Texans from the sidelines to the voting booth.
“We should expend our resources on the base,” Crockett said. “We have one of the lowest voter turnout states in the country. We know that we’re only getting a little bit more than 50% of our voters to actually vote. My goal is to increase that.
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“Now, will I say, ‘I’m not going to talk to you because you’re a Republican’?” she added. “I’m not going to say that. But I am going to tell you that my agenda is my agenda. And my agenda is making sure that you have health care. My agenda is making sure that your hospitals are not closing. My agenda is making sure that these farmers and ranchers are not having to file for bankruptcy.”
