Rep. Jasmine Crockett said Monday that she will run in the Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in Texas, part of an 11th-hour candidate scramble that reshapes the party’s competition in a state where it is waging an against-the-odds effort to flip a Republican seat.
Crockett announced her entry into the race hours after former congressman Colin Allred said he was withdrawing from the Democratic Senate contest and would instead launch a bid for one of the new congressional districts created by a Republican-led redraw of the state’s U.S. House map.
A page on Crockett’s newly launched campaign website said that she is running “because I believe Texas deserves a Senator who will be an independent voice for all 30 million Texans — not a rubber stamp or party line vote for Donald Trump.”
Crockett will face state Rep. James Talarico in the Senate Democratic primary. The contest pits a congresswoman who has been a combative and outspoken critic of Republicans, at times going viral and stoking controversy as she has clashed with GOP foes, against a state lawmaker building a national profile as he has criticized his party’s national leadership and argued that Democrats need a “reset.”
On the Republican side, Sen. John Cornyn is running for reelection and is mired in a competitive primary race against state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt.
Senate Republicans are aiming to defend their 53-47 majority in the midterms, while Democrats are looking for states where they can make gains. The Senate race in Texas is rated as “likely Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Many Democrats are hoping that Paxton emerges victorious from the primary contest, wagering that he would be easier to defeat than Cornyn.
The last-minute announcements came hours before Monday evening’s candidate filing deadline for the primaries in March. The reshuffling is happening in a state where the congressional district lines were until recently in limbo because of a legal battle over redistricting. Monday’s moves follow a Supreme Court order upholding the Republican-drawn congressional map, which could help the GOP win five new seats.
With Crockett jumping into the Senate race, Rep. Marc Veasey (D) is expected to run for Crockett’s redrawn House seat, according to people familiar with the decision process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans had not been made public.
In a statement Monday, Talarico said he was building a movement “to defeat the billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians who have taken over our state.”
“Our movement is rooted in unity over division — so we welcome Congresswoman Crockett into this race,” he said.
Allred, who lost the 2024 Senate race against Sen. Ted Cruz (R), said in a statement that he wanted to head off a primary and runoff that would wound the party. (In Texas, if a candidate does not win a majority in the primary, the top two finishers advance to a runoff.)
“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers,” Allred said in his statement, citing Cornyn, Paxton and Hunt. “That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the U.S. Senate.”
Allred said he was instead launching a campaign to represent Texas’s new 33rd Congressional District, which covers parts of Dallas and Tarrant counties. He will face Rep. Julie Johnson (D), who is serving her first term representing Allred’s former district.
In a Monday interview with CNN, Allred said that “of course” reports of Crockett considering a Senate run influenced his decision and that he had a “professional, friendly conversation” with her about their plans.
“What I took from that was that I needed to try and decide what I thought would be best for the state, for the party, in a time and in a year where there is so much at stake. And this is not a normal time,” Allred said.
Asked for comment, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which had remained neutral in the Senate primary contest between Allred and Talarico, focused on the Republican primary.
“Republicans have already lit nearly $50 million on fire trying to bail out John Cornyn,” said DSCC spokesperson Maeve Coyle, “and that’s just the beginning of the Texas-sized problems the GOP is facing in the Lone Star State.”
After Allred’s announcement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee posted on X, “Thanks for playing!”
The Republican candidates for Senate in Texas have been relatively quiet about Allred’s withdrawal from the race. Late Monday morning, Cornyn shared a blog post on X titled, “Why Jasmine Crockett’s Senate run could be a nightmare for Democrats.”
Allred, a lawyer and former professional football player who was a linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, was first elected to Congress in 2018, when he upset Republican incumbent Pete Sessions. He served three terms in the House representing a portion of the Dallas area before running for Senate last year.
“It’s the community where I was raised, and where Aly and I are now raising our two boys. It is my home,” he said Monday, referring to his wife, Alexandra Eber.
Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
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