Talarico defeats Crockett in Democratic Senate primary in Texas

Rep. Jasmine Crockett lost the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Texas to state Rep. James Talarico, Decision Desk HQ projects.

Talarico, a state lawmaker from an Austin-area district, defeated Crockett in the highly competitive primary race, which in many ways centered on race and gender. 

Many in the Democratic Party viewed the race, the first major primary of the 2026 midterms, as a test of the party’s future direction. Crockett and Talarico were generally aligned on policy, and both rose to prominence in large part through social media, making the race largely about stylistic and strategic differences. 

Talarico, a former middle school teacher and seminarian, offered a vision of progressive politics rooted in his Christian faith. Much of his campaign message centered on excoriating billionaires and corporate interests, who he said are trying to divide Americans. He sought to build an inclusive, big-tent movement, campaigning in rural and deep-red parts of the state and courting support from independents and Republicans.  

“Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whether you’re a progressive or a conservative, the real fight in this country is not left versus right. It’s top versus bottom,” Talarico said at a recent campaign rally in San Antonio. 

“We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change the politics in this state and in this country,” he added. “Our nation is so divided that we can’t even share the Super Bowl anymore.” 

It’s not yet known who Talarico will face in November: no candidate received a majority of the vote in the three-way Republican primary, meaning Sen. John Cornyn is headed to a May 26 runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. 

There were hiccups with voting in Dallas County, a major Crockett stronghold, and Williamson County, north of Austin. Republicans in both counties ended the use of county-wide vote centers where anyone in the county could vote, and now require voters to vote in a specific precinct. On Tuesday, there were widespread reports of voters in both counties being confused about their correct polling places, leading to calls from the Crockett and Talarico camps to extend voting. 

A court order extended voting by two hours in Dallas County, but the Texas Supreme Court later temporarily blocked that ruling and ordered provisional ballots cast after 7 p.m. Central Time to be separated from other Election Day votes.

On Wednesday, Crocket conceded and called for the party to unite behind Talarico.

“This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track,” she said in a statement. “With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”

Talarico largely refrained from attacking Crockett directly in his campaign, though he did tell Politico he was “concerned” about her assertion that she wouldn’t need to win over Trump voters in a state that backed Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024 and that she would instead seek to expand the electorate by turning out new voters. 

Crockett, first elected to a Dallas-based House seat in 2022, broke out on the national stage as a progressive firebrand with her tough questioning of witnesses before the House Oversight Committee and attacks against President Donald Trump and Republicans. Crockett’s approach launched her into the national spotlight, but also drew criticism and concerns about her viability in a general election. 

She infamously insulted former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body” in a spat during a House Oversight hearing in 2024 after Greene made a dig at her eyelashes. She referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, as “governor hot wheels” — she said she was referring to his busing of migrants to Democratic-controlled states. Late last year, she defended blasting a Trump Cabinet official for taking a campaign donation from “a Jeffrey Epstein” who was not, in fact, the late convicted sex offender but a Long Island physician. And in the final stretch of the campaign, a reporter from The Atlantic said armed security escorted her out of a Crockett campaign event, an allegation Crockett’s team denied. 

Crockett and her allies charged that criticisms of her strategy and concerns about electability in a general election were rooted in race and gender. She also pointed to Abbott spending millions on ads that attack her in his reelection bid as a sign that Republicans weren’t keen to run against her. She also picked up the support of former Vice President Kamala Harris, who recorded a robocall endorsing her days before the primary.  

“Some people say, ‘Listen, there’s no way that Texas will support a Black woman,” Crockett said at a recent campaign event, according to Politico. “We are a majority-minority state, we can start there. The reality is that I didn’t run because I was a woman. I ran because I’m qualified. At the end of the day. I just happened to be Black and woman, but I am the most qualified person in this. Period.”

Talarico will face an uphill battle in the general election in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to a statewide office since 1994. But Democrats hope that Trump’s poor approval ratings, declining poll numbers among Latinx voters who swung to Trump in 2024 and the messy three-way Republican primary could give them a shot in the Lone Star state. 

Trump declined to endorse in the GOP contest, though Senate Republicans and their official campaign arm backed Cornyn in the primary. 

Republicans control the U.S. Senate 53 to 47 votes. For Democrats to win back the chamber in 2026, they’d need to hold competitive seats in states like Georgia and Michigan while flipping four GOP-held seats in Maine, North Carolina and even more Republican-leaning states like Texas.