Talarico v. Crockett: The Democrats’ Dilemma

Everyone agrees the Talarico-Crockett matchup will be the marquee event in the March Democratic primaries. But there’s lots of debate over who ought to win, and why.

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Friday, January 9, 2026

Texas U.S. Senate Race: The State of Play

First, let’s review the state of play for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, which will be the marquee contest on the ballot next November. Primaries will be held on March 3, with runoffs on May 26 if necessary.

In this corner …

There are three candidates on the Republican ballot: 23-year incumbent John Cornyn, current Texas A.G. and ethical Chernobyl Ken Paxton, and second-term Congressman from Houston Wesley Hunt. The most important thing to understand about their contest is that the dominant image on each of their websites is of them with President Trump. Texas is MAGA country, and Cornyn and Paxton are particularly scrambling to get Trump to weigh in for them. Early polling shows Paxton leading, but Cornyn within striking distance. Hunt is, and likely will remain, an afterthought.

John Cornyn, whose timidity and moral shape-shifting are an embarrassment in the Senate seat once occupied by Sam Houston, is running for his fifth term as a U.S. Senator. Why? To what end? Not even he seems to know: “Mumble, mumble, conservative values, blather, blather, Texas strong, blah, blah, Democrats are evil.”

As if another six years of John Cornyn wouldn’t be bad enough, his principal challenger is the loathsome Ken Paxton. Paxton takes great pleasure in holding flashy press conferences where he announces some lawsuit, usually punching down on some disfavored class of people, like immigrants or trans people. (He never holds the follow-up press conference when his lawsuit has been tossed out of court.) Someday in the future, schoolchildren in Texas will be embarrassed to learn what a crook and overall sleazeball he is. But we live in the present, alas.

Both are desperate to be Trump’s endorsee in the primary; Friday, Cornyn told the Houston Chronicle he’d spoken with the president earlier this week, and could not squeeze out an endorsement. Trump’s endorsement, if he gives one, may prove decisive in a GOP primary featuring two worn-out hacks for whom Texas has so little to show from their lifetime in politics.

And in this corner …

On the Democratic side, Austin-area State Rep. James Talarico and Dallas-area Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett are duking it out for the nomination. (Former NFL player and congressman Colin Allred, whose 2024 campaign evoked memories of a young Bob Krueger, filed and then removed his name from the Senate race so he could focus on regaining his congressional seat.)

Both Talarico and Crockett are phenoms of a sort: Talarico for his teacher-turned-preacher-turned-legislator backstory and his willingness to go anywhere to share it, Crockett for her tough-girl fearlessness and willingness to throw rhetorical punches in any forum.

They differ from their GOP counterparts: both are young and, although each has been in politics for less than a decade, have managed to create a brand, if not a legacy. On most issues, Talarico and Crockett are not that far apart, and so it is their stylistic differences that have attracted attention, money and supporters. In that sense, they embody the same old battles that have plagued the Democratic coalition for a generation now.

30 Years Wandering the Desert

Texas Democrats have not won a statewide election since 1994. That’s 30 years in the electoral wilderness, and every two years Texas Democrats look to the election season with almost messianic hope: Will Ron Kirk defeat John Cornyn to become the first black Texan elected to the U.S. Senate (2002)? Will Bill White’s accomplished record as Houston’s mayor be enough to dethrone the ethically ambiguous Governor Rick Perry (2010)? Are Texas voters ready for the squeaky-clean Justin Nelson to replace the aforementioned Ken Paxton (2018)?

There are two main theories about the nature of the drought and how to end it. The first is that Texas is a Republican state, bolstered by the growth of the suburbs and the influx of new people from other states. The second is that “Texas is not a Republican state, it is a non-voting state.” In other words, if all the non-registered or registered-but-not-voting Texans showed up on Election Day, Democrats would win. This theory has been around for at least a decade.

The first problem with the latter theory is that it cannot, strictly speaking, be disproven. Ask anyone who subscribes to the theory why Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election (the highest-turnout election in Texas history) and they will say something about how the turnout was high, but not high enough.

The other problem is the assumption at the heart of the theory: get 100,000 unregistered, non-participating voters to vote and they will vote Democratic, at least in numbers sufficient to sway some statewide elections. As Texas Monthly’s Ben Rowen has repeatedly argued, there is evidence that non-voting Texans are not mostly Democratic.

The debate is an extremely important one: Democrats of different camps argue either that we should nominate someone who will find and inspire those “invisible” Democrats to come out and vote, or that we should nominate someone who’s broadly acceptable to a marginal group of Republicans and independents, and count on disaffection with the GOP nominee (or with Trump) to cause enough defections.

Talarico’s theory of the case is that there are enough disaffected Republicans and independents who, seeing the moral, political and economic wreckage of Trump 2.0, will vote for a reasonable, moderate Democrat. Crockett’s theory is that millions of putative Democrats are sitting out elections, victim to voter suppression and grotesque gerrymandering, and the right fire-breathing Democrat can inspire them to register and vote next fall.

This year, Texas Democrats think they’ve glimpsed the Promised Land, largely because the Trump Administration had made a mess of government at the federal level – persistent inflation, tariff-caused price increases, and the tiresome corruption of the Dear Leader and his satraps.

But there doesn’t seem to be any groundswell for deposing the Trump crime empire, at least in Texas. Texas is basically a 55% Republican state, and at least half of those people would vote for the bubonic plague if Trump endorsed it. (See the chart below, courtesy of our friends at the Texas Politics Project: half of Texas Republicans think MAGA has just the right amount of influence on the GOP; that’s the MAGA Koolaid drinkers.)

The so-called “normie” Republicans – a dying breed from whom Cornyn sprang in the ‘90s – may dislike Trump but are still unlikely to vote for a Democrat, and then only if the economy is in freefall and ICE agents are shooting their daughters.

What’s Ahead?

Of late, I have been working on the assumption that Paxton and Crockett will be the nominees: the rank-and-file party members overwhelmed by the more passionate partisans. As of today, they both lead in polls for their respective primaries. But lots can happen between now and when early voting begins next month.

Crockett and Talarico will have their first debate on January 24 in Georgetown, hosted by the Texas AFL-CIO. No word yet on a showdown among Cornyn, Paxton and Hunt. Hunt would desperately like one, just to increase his visibility. But everyone knows their race depends on a more mercurial variable: when and if Trump endorses in that race.

The built-in advantages for Republicans in Texas mean the GGOP can nominate the most extreme, far-right candidate and still have an excellent chance at winning. The Democrats have not had that luxury; what to do in this political climate?