Just a month into his Democratic campaign for U.S. Senate, a public poll put state Rep. James Talarico ahead among white and Latino voters in a head-to-head matchup against his then-rival, former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
A campaign consultant posted a screenshot of the news on Oct. 9 — but cropped out the results among Black voters, who favored Allred by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
State Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, was searing.
“It’s disappointing to see a campaign share selective polling that leaves out Black voters entirely. Black voters CANNOT be an afterthought — they’re the foundation of our party,” Jones, who is Black, said on social media. “Leaving them out of your polling story isn’t just misleading — it’s disrespectful.”
It was an early indication of the tense racial politics that would eventually grip the race, growing only more fraught after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, launched her bid in December. Her campaign, which is headlined by her political brand as a partisan crusader, set off a firestorm of online commentary from around the country declaring her candidacy a liability for Democrats in a state that elected President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points. For many of her supporters, the scrutiny of Crockett seemed rooted in racism and misogyny, and conspicuously absent in relation to Talarico and other firebrand candidates, like Democrat Graham Platner in Maine, who are white.
That tension has continued to frame the contest in the weeks leading up to early voting, with Talarico struggling to break 13% support among Black voters, according to recent polling. Then, a social media influencer alleged last week that the Austin Democrat referred to Allred as a “mediocre Black man,” prompting Allred to issue a scathing response and to endorse Crockett.
Talarico called the allegation a “mischaracterization” and said he criticized Allred’s campaigning but would “never attack him on the basis of race.” He has repeatedly affirmed that he is running a positive campaign and urged his supporters to remain respectful of Crockett.
“It’s incumbent upon me to introduce myself to Black voters across the state to try and earn their trust, earn their respect and hopefully earn their support,” Talarico said in a statement. “There’s no way to win Texas without Black voters. Full stop. So I’m listening to their concerns and engaging with the community so that they know they have a place in this campaign.”
In an interview, Jones argued that even as Democrats worked to attract new voters and appeal to independents and Republicans, the party could not forget about its base or assume that “Black voters are just going to always be there to vote.”
Crockett, who is Black, has built enormous enthusiasm among Black voters, owing in part to her wide renown among Democrats as a progressive, anti-GOP firebrand.
That enthusiasm among Black voters is central to her theory of winning statewide, which proposes capitalizing on demographic changes in Texas to supercharge Democratic turnout and motivate latent voters to show up at the polls. As of 2022, according to Pew Research, Texas had the highest population of Black eligible voters of any state at 2.9 million, making up about 14% of all eligible voters in the state.
Black voters are a core constituency of the Democratic base, making up about a fifth of Texas’ likely Democratic primary voters and between 11 and 13% of the general electorate, according to Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University who conducts statewide polling. Exit polls showed Allred capturing 84% of Black voters in his losing 2024 run against Sen. Ted Cruz.
Jones estimated that it was unlikely Black voters would exceed 13% of the general electorate — the high water mark set in 2008 when President Barack Obama was at the top of the ticket. He added that Black voters’ share of the voting public has “remained relatively constant over the course of the past 20 years,” unlike that of white, Latino and Asian voters.
But Crockett is betting she can push those numbers higher, while also appealing to Texas’ Latino and Asian populations.
“If we continue to have the same electorate as the last 30 years, then we are doomed to get the same results. The only path forward for a Democrat to get elected statewide in Texas is by expanding the electorate,” Crockett said in a statement. “I can connect the dots between Trump’s failed policies and the people’s pain.”
Black Democratic voters also form the core of Crockett’s support in the primary, with polls showing her winning upward of 71% of the bloc. Prominent Black politicians in Texas have endorsed or appeared alongside her campaign, including Allred, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, and a number of Black state lawmakers, including state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins of San Antonio, chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus.
“She represents trust, visibility and results,” said state Rep. Christian Manuel, D-Beaumont, who endorsed Talarico before Crockett’s entry and now serves as a Crockett campaign surrogate. “Black voters already know her. She’s visible, she’s outspoken, she’s clear about where she stands, and people have seen her fight publicly on issues that matter to Black communities as well as other communities. And that familiarity, it brings trust.”
With Black voters propelling Crockett’s run, their choice in the primary could be decisive — making it Talarico’s task to narrow that gap, if only by a handful of percentage points.
Recent polling has found Talarico continuing to draw meager support among Black voters, with a plurality in the months leading up to the primary saying they did not know much about him. Almost a dozen Black Texans at a town hall featuring Crockett just outside San Antonio in early January told The Texas Tribune that they had never heard of Talarico or only knew a little bit about him.
The Austin Democrat has worked to introduce himself across voter groups, dropping $8.8 million so far on advertising, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. He has spent most recent Sundays at Black churches, sat for interviews with various Black-owned digital, radio and print media, and met with Black business and community leaders around the state. His campaign is also “investing in targeted relational organizing in Black communities,” he said.
“There are some politicians who would look at these numbers and say they should spend their time elsewhere. I’m taking the exact opposite approach,” Talarico said. “I’m running a people-powered campaign, and I know that I must continue to work to earn the support of Black voters across the state.”
An internal survey conducted by Talarico’s campaign in late January put his name recognition among Black voters at 62% and his favorability among Black Texans who know him at 87%, according to spokesperson JT Ennis, suggesting that even if Talarico is unable to peel off many Black voters from Crockett in the primary, he could still earn their support in the general election if he wins in March.
“As more Black voters get to know James, we expect his favorability to continue increasing,” Ennis said.
Still, the online commentary about the competition — and the insistence by many Talarico boosters that their concerns about Crockett’s candidacy have nothing to do with race or gender — has nevertheless left a sour taste for some.
“It is turning voters who would normally be open, especially Black voters, to say, ‘I know a dog whistle when I hear one, and no one can tell me that I don’t hear that dog whistle,’” Manuel said, while adding that he “absolutely” did not think Talarico was racist.
At the same time, while Talarico has struggled to build support among Black Texans, the two candidates are also competing to attract Latino voters, many of whom surged to the right in 2024 and whose support will be crucial in the general election.
In almost every public survey leading up to the contest, Talarico led Crockett among Latino likely voters. Early in her campaign, Crockett came under fire for controversial statements she previously made about Latinos, including comments suggesting that Latinos who voted for Trump had a “slave mentality” and that the country should welcome migrants because “we’re done picking cotton.”
But the most recent public poll conducted in late January by the University of Houston put Crockett ahead of Talarico by 9 points among Latinos, marking a major swing for her.
“I’m reassembling our winning Democratic coalition,” Crockett said in a statement. “That’s why billionaires are pouring money into a super PAC that’s running attack ads against me. My entire career, I’ve fought the system, and this is yet another example of the system fighting me back.”
“The base of the Democratic Party”
On a recent Sunday last month, thousands of Black Texans packed New Creation Christian Fellowship in Windcrest, just outside San Antonio — not for a service, but for a town hall headlined by Crockett.
The event, one of several featuring Crockett at Black churches that day, was as much about getting out the vote in the March 3 primary as it was a chance for the audience to see the congresswoman up close and to lend her their fellowship in the steep climb to flip Texas.
“I’m glad to see the big crowd already. That’s a blessing,” said John Wright, 61, an Army veteran and substitute teacher in the audience. “She’s an aggressive-type leader that’s definitely going to do well, but we’re in Texas, so it’s an uphill battle to get to the top. So [we] want to give her that support from us right now.”
To win statewide, Crockett is looking to maximize turnout among Democratic and lapsed voters by embracing her profile as a GOP antagonist, betting that her record of standing up to Republicans in Washington will energize infrequent and devoted blue voters alike.
“We’re leading amongst almost all demographics and that is because the people know I’m more than lip service — I’m the leader they know and the fighter they trust,” Crockett said in a statement, noting that the January University of Houston poll also gave her an edge with independent voters. “I’ve been fighting on the frontlines for almost four years on the federal level.”
At New Creation Christian Fellowship, several attendees said they thought Crockett was “for the people” and appreciated her direct and unabashed way of speaking out.
Senaah Ellis, 74, said she had been following Crockett for awhile after seeing her on TV.
“She’s bold, and I think she has the people’s interest at heart, and I think she’s one that will stand up to injustice,” Ellis said, adding that she did not know who Talarico was. “She’s for the people.”
At Friendship West Baptist Church, Crockett’s home church in Dallas, several members of the congregation last month cited her experience on the federal level and her leadership in their community as major assets.
“She is speaking from the point of understanding what this community needs,” Kenneth Moss, 56, said. “She’s been on the forefront of pushing those beliefs, and Congresswoman Crockett, I totally believe, is pushing forward for our community.”
State Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons, D-Houston, who initially endorsed Talarico before throwing her support behind Crockett upon her entry into the race, said she decided to back Crockett in part based on the excitement her candidacy would likely gin up among the party’s base, and the down-ballot effect that could have if it translated to higher turnout among Democratic voters.
“It’s not a secret that Black voters, especially in some of our southern states, are really the base of the Democratic Party,” Simmons said. “Especially for Black voters, it feels like, well, this is a person that gets us. She was a public defender, she was a civil rights attorney, she’s been in the community.”
For Manuel, Crockett’s candidacy represents a chance for Black Texans to elect someone who has lived their concerns and can speak with authority to their priorities. He added that while Talarico had the potential to appeal to Black voters, it’d be hard for him to win them over Crockett.
“His message is something that we can get with, but it doesn’t feel authentically us,” Manuel said. “When there’s a difference between someone understanding your struggle and someone living your struggle, I don’t see how you overcome that.”
Several Black Democrats also emphasized that Democratic candidates could not take Black voters for granted.
Talarico “has a chance,” Gervin-Hawkins said in an interview last month, “but African Americans don’t want to be taken for granted. And so you have to have some level of courting, so that people can know who you are.”
Talarico’s challenge
Talarico has cast a wider net than Crockett in his approach to winning statewide, hoping to both turn out the Democratic base and also appeal to potential crossover voters with his emphasis on working Texans, his Christian faith and his years as a schoolteacher.
“The only way to end one-party rule in Texas is by bringing people together — across religion, across race, across gender — to defeat Republican extremism,” Talarico said. “At the end of the day, my hope is that our core message — fighting billionaire influence in our politics, corruption and the high cost of living — will bring working people together all over this state so we can make life better for all 31 million Texans.”
If he wins the primary, Talarico will need to work to ensure that Black voters turn out for him in November.
Race-related tensions contributed to Democrat MJ Hegar’s loss to Sen. John Cornyn in 2020, after Hegar won the nomination over state Sen. Royce West, a prominent Black Democrat. The month before the general election, West said Hegar had not reached out to him for his support, adding that he did not plan to vote for her and that she “had a problem all along with Black folks” — comments that Cornyn seized on in an ad campaign aimed at depressing Hegar’s margin with Black voters.
“There’s a lot of work that would have to be done if [Talarico] were to win the primary to get Black Crockett voters to come back,” said Dallas Jones, a Democratic strategist who worked for West in 2020.
Talarico said that whether he wins the primary or not, “I’ll do everything in my power to build a broad coalition to win in November.”
He cited his record of advocating for Black constituents in the Texas House, including through his fight for public schools, his opposition last summer to a new congressional map that weakens Black and brown voting power, and his work to pass Javier Ambler’s Law, which banned reality TV shows from filming police after a Williamson County police officer killed Ambler, an unarmed Black man, while being followed by the reality TV show “Live PD.”
“I want to reach as many Black voters as possible, and we’re going to keep reaching out throughout this campaign,” Talarico said. “Even if I don’t earn their vote in the primary, at the end of the day I am applying for the job of being their Senator, so I’m going to continue listening to the issues that matter most so I can deliver for my constituents in the halls of power.”
Zahiyah Carter contributed reporting.
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