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Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Tex., is seriously considering running for the Senate, she revealed in a recent interview.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett said her decision on a campaign will be last-minute, saying the candidate who wins the Democratic primary election will also need to be successful in the general election. (ROD LAMKEY JR. AP FILE)
“I’m seriously weighing it to the extent that I’m about to spend a lot of money to get data,” Crockett told host Dasha Burns of Politico’s “The Conversation.” “So I’m a data-driven person. I will tell you that I personally believe that Texas needs to do something different if they wanted different results. That’s just the bottom line.”
No Democrat has won a Senate election in Texas since 1988. Republican Sen. John Cornyn is running for reelection next year to serve a fifth term. Crockett said her decision on a campaign will be last-minute, saying the candidate who wins the Democratic primary election will also need to be successful in the general election.
“I’m going to be flat-out with you and tell you that I don’t think that there’s a Democrat that can take out Cornyn,” she said.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee agrees and is spending a lot of money on Cornyn’s primary campaign to make sure he wins, Crockett says. That could not be confirmed, though, and the NRSC didn’t respond to a question about its spending.
Texas has historically had much better Democratic Senate candidates than Republican ones, but Democrats often lose, Crockett said. She said a lack of voter participation has contributed to the Democrats’ performance and that future candidates need to shift strategy to achieve better results.
“I don’t think that we have the luxury, especially with us having such an early primary, of actually doing what we normally do, which, we spend about $100 million to get someone’s name ID up, but the way that I look at elections is that that’s just first base,” Crockett said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, great. We know your name.’ ”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett speaks during a House committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Feb. 12, 2025. (Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)
It’s unclear how much voter participation and name recognition have affected Democrats’ performances. Crockett said she already has high name recognition, though, and is mentioned in Senate polls among other Democrats who have previously campaigned statewide, like former Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred.
“Beto had two state runs, and then we also know that Colin Allred just ran statewide. I’ve only represented, at most, 1/38th of the state,” Crockett said. “So to have my name ID right up under them without ever having run statewide, in addition to the fact that the vast majority of these polls have me either being in first or [close to first].”
In mid-September, Crockett made headlines when she said she was disappointed in her white Democrat House colleagues who voted in favor of a resolution “honoring the life and legacy” of Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Sept. 10.
The measure passed by a vote of 310-58, receiving the support of 95 Democratic lawmakers, including top leaders in the party.
“For the most part, the only people that voted no were people of color because the rhetoric that Charlie Kirk’s continuously put out there was rhetoric that specifically targeted people of color,” Crockett said. She was one of the 58 no votes.
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