The national narrative about the result of last night’s Texas Senate Democratic primary is that the party dodged a bullet. Picking Austin state representative James Talarico over Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was the savvy move, ensuring a competitive statewide race that will, at worst, be a drag on Republican dollars in the upcoming midterms, and at best could finally fulfill leftist dreams of turning the state blue.
It’s possible this national narrative is right, and Talarico will make it a race against embattled incumbent Senator John Cornyn or, Democrats hope, controversial Attorney General Ken Paxton. There’s plenty of investment by the donor class and the party establishment in this effort. The dutiful legacy media complex, from Stephen Colbert to The New Yorker, is already building up Talarico as that rare thing, a Christian of the Left who can win over centrist voters. They are already giving him the serious “young man looking into the middle distance thinking about noble stuff” profile already done to death for fellow Ivy League grads Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg (to no avail). Expect more of the same in the months ahead.
Despite Kamala Harris’s endorsement, Crockett faced a deluge of Democratic donor opposition for her Senate effort, as billionaire lefties went all out for Talarico — and paid for all the dirty political attacks he claims to demur from. As the Washington Free Beacon reported:
Meanwhile, a billionaire-funded super PAC linked to Talarico—who repeatedly assailed the influence of billionaire-funded super PACs—relentlessly attacked Crockett on the airwaves. The Lone Star Rising PAC, started by a longtime friend of Talarico just days before the candidate launched his Senate campaign, spent millions on negative ads against Crockett over the past few weeks. LinkedIn founder and Jeffrey Epstein pal Reid Hoffman was among the billionaires who bankrolled the super PAC, along with hedge fund titans Stephen Mandel and Mark Heising. The group also received millions via the same “dark money” networks Talarico had promised to ban via ‘anti-corruption’ legislation.
The irony here is that while Democrats might have wanted Talarico because he could make Texas competitive, they ended up picking a guy who — for all his invocations of Scripture — is actually further left than Crockett. Her record isn’t moderate, but it’s more moderate than you’d think given her fiery social media persona. And her appeal was to a broad ethnically diverse camp that tends to grade as more moderate, while Talarico actually performed best in multiple polls with liberals. There’s a reason that white voters in Austin were his greatest center of support, and it’s not because he name-checks the Magnificat while making the case for abortion.
Texas Democrats may ultimately regret this decision. Crockett would’ve had a tougher path to victory, but she could’ve made inroads into the communities that Democrats need to peel back from Donald Trump’s coalition. With Talarico, it looks like Beto all over again — a guy who’s further left than the media will ever acknowledge trying to fake out moderate voters just until Election Day. In case you missed it, this was their favored approach just last year to win statewide in Virginia and New Jersey with two new governors who even got described as moderates by the Wall Street Journal, and instantly revealed they were nothing of the kind.
So watch out, Texas. You’re about to get the nice young man junior Bible camp version of Abigail Spanberger. Don’t fall for it.
