Republicans Helped Push Jasmine Crockett Into Texas Senate Race

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, reportedly worked for months to get Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) to throw her hat into the ring for the Lone Star State’s 2026 Senate race.

According to NOTUS’s Reese Gorman, “Republicans’ Senate campaign arm has actively worked behind the scenes to encourage Rep. Jasmine Crockett to jump into the Senate Democratic primary in Texas, believing she will be the easiest opponent to beat.”

The GOP, per Gorman, viewed both declared Democrats already competing for their party’s nomination, Colin Allred and James Talarico, as “formidable.” Republican insiders don’t share the same view of Crockett.

From NOTUS:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee put out a poll in July with Crockett’s name included, which showed her as the leading Democrat in a hypothetical matchup.

“When we saw the results, we were like, ‘OK, we got to disseminate this far and wide,’” a source familiar with the process told NOTUS.

The fact that Crockett was included in the poll was no accident.

In June news broke that Texas Democrats Colin Allred, James Talarico, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Joaquin Castro met to discuss the 2026 election. Operatives at the NRSC realized that Crockett — whose political stock had been rising — wasn’t included in that meeting and also hadn’t been included in any credible poll. So they decided to change that.

Following the NRSC’s polls, other surveys began to include Crockett and showed similar results: She was surging in the primary.

The NRSC then worked to amplify those polls and is taking credit for helping “orchestrate the pile on of these polling numbers to really drive that news cycle and that narrative that Jasmine Crockett was surging in Texas,” the source said.

A number of Republicans — including Karl Rove and Senator John Cornyn (D-TX), who is running for reelection and could face off against Crockett next fall — have celebrated Crockett’s entrance into the race.

Allred dropped out of the race earlier this week while Talarico has indicated he will compete with Crockett for the nomination.