James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett both entered the Texas Senate primary as rising stars in the Democratic Party. And on Tuesday, March 3, Talarico won.
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On Tuesday, March 3, state Rep. James Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas in the Texas Senate primary in a battle between two rising stars in the national Democratic Party.
Talarico will face whoever wins the May 26 runoff election, either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn or the state’s embattled attorney general, Ken Paxton. Talarico, 36, is a Presbyterian seminarian and former elementary school teacher who is currently running a faith-based populist campaign in the Lone Star State.
The Democratic race provided a stark contrast for Texas primary voters. Mr. Talarico, who is white, ran against Mr. Crockett, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a race that raised questions about race, electability and stylistic differences. A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide election since 1994, but former Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within 2.5 percentage points of Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.
Crockett entered the race three months after Talarico, but her star quality and fundraising talent made her the favorite to win. She had become nationally known for her vitriolic comments about the Republican Party, including calling former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene a “beach-blonde, butch-bodied woman” for insulting her false eyelashes.
Mr. Talarico is little known outside of Texas, but has long been considered a candidate for the statewide office. He was once a colleague of Crockett’s in the Texas House of Representatives, but he remained in the state House when Crockett entered Congress. He made national headlines in 2021 when he forced Fox News host and current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to concede during a live appearance that President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Mr. Crockett did not run for Congress after the House districts were redrawn in mid-2010 redistricting. The newly formed Dallas line is still safely Democratic, and the primary for the seat was won by her pastor, Frederick “Freddie” Haynes III of Friendship West Baptist Church.
Talarico runs campaigns based on affordable prices
The March 3rd election was a window into the future of the Democratic Party. Talarico’s platform revolves around economic issues such as raising wages and expanding access to affordable housing and child care, and in 2025 has garnered messages from both moderates like Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and progressives like New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani.
Talarico launched the campaign with a cinematic ad featuring a man standing outside a church with his sleeves rolled up in the back of a rusting pickup truck. “The greatest divide in our country is not left versus right, but up versus down,” Talarico said in the ad, previewing his campaign focused on economic inequality.
Talarico was born in Round Rock, Texas, in 1989 to a single mother, according to his campaign biography. When the father became abusive, the mother moved the children to a hotel and then an apartment, raising Talarico in east Austin.
The University of Texas at Austin graduate worked for Teach for America as a sixth-grade language arts teacher at Rose Middle School on San Antonio’s west side, a historically Mexican-American community. He then earned a master’s degree in education policy from Harvard University.
First elected in 2018, he has long served as the public spokesperson for Texas Democrats during disputes with Republican colleagues, including last year and in 2021 when Texas House Democrats fled the state to block passage of Republican elections and redistricting legislation. Some believed Talarico’s approach would be more successful in swaying Republicans and independents to vote for him in the general election.
Crockett’s campaign launch ad offered a different approach. The cameras focused solely on her, and the only audio was a recording of Trump hurling insults at her.
Crockett is known for his viral videos skewering Trump administration officials and other Republicans, but the Talarico campaign also leaned heavily into its social media strategy. Crockett has 2.2 million Instagram followers, while Talarico has just 100,000 fewer followers.
And while Crockett has nearly 1 million more followers on TikTok than Talarico, Talarico had more support where it mattered most: at the polls.
Contributors: Katherine Palmer, Nicole Fallato, USA TODAY
