Jasmine Crockett expected to launch Texas Senate bid before deadline

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a controversial progressive and frequent figurehead of President Donald Trump, is expected to launch a US Senate campaign on Monday, the deadline for candidates to file for the state’s March 3 primary.

Hours before Crockett — a rising Democratic star with a large social media footprint who represents a Dallas-area district — held an event to announce her decision, one of the two Democrats already running for Senate abandoned his bid.

Former Rep. Colin Allred, who was making his second straight bid for Senate in the right-leaning state of Texas, announced that he is ending his campaign and will instead launch a campaign for congress as he seeks to return to the House. But Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminary, remains in the Senate primary, setting up a potential showdown between two rising contenders with massive fundraising.

If Crockett launches a Senate campaign as expected, it will shake up a high-profile, hotly contested race that, on the Republican side, includes Sen. John Cornyn and his primary GOP rivals, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. House Rep. Wesley Hunt. The Texas contest is one of the most closely watched confrontations in the Senate as Democrats try to regain the majority in the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.

The former NFL star drops Senate bid as Jasmine Crockett closes in on major announcement

Crockett told CNN this weekend that she had written out two cashier’s checks, one if she joined the Senate campaign and one to give if she filed for re-election to the House.

Its live announcement is scheduled to be made 90 minutes before the deadline for submitting one of the checks.

Crockett has teased his potential Senate run for weeks, telling MS NOW on Sunday that “I’m closer to yes than no.” She said she was assigned to the ballot to make her case for a Senate run in Texas, where no Democrat has won a statewide election in more than three decades.

In another sign that she is expected to begin a Senate run, Crockett told the Dallas Morning News that she has called both Allred and Tallarico to discuss her polls.

A big win for Trump and the Republican Party, as the Supreme Court gave the green light to a new congressional map in Texas

Monday’s filing deadline comes just a few days after the Supreme Court upheld a new congressional map passed by the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that creates five more right-leaning House districts in the Lone Star State.

One Texas Democrat whose district changed dramatically, Rep. Mark Veasey, was reportedly discussing with Crockett a plan where he would file for her current House seat shortly after she filed to run for the Senate.

Former Democratic Rep. Colin Allred of Texas announced Monday that he will abandon his 2026 U.S. Senate bid and will instead run to return to the House. (Reuters/Marco Bello)

Allred, who was making his second consecutive bid for the Senate after losing to conservative Senator Ted Cruz by nearly 9 points last year, said in a statement that he did not want to contribute to anything that would scatter Democrats’ hopes of flipping the GOP-controlled Senate seat in next year’s elections.

“In the past few days, I have come to believe that the bruising Democratic primaries and Senate runoffs will prevent the Democratic Party from fighting this crucial election united against the danger that Donald Trump and one of the Republican shoe-lickers Paxton, Cornyn, or Hunt pose to our communities and our Constitution,” Allred wrote.

By withdrawing from the race, Allred would likely allow Democrats to avoid a costly and chaotic primary runoff in the spring, giving the party more time to unify around their nominee and raise much-needed campaign money.

On the other hand, with Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt targeting each other in a potentially combustible primary, the GOP nomination could head toward a runoff, which could trigger if no candidate receives 50% of the vote in the primary.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas faces GOP primary challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt, as the longtime senator seeks re-election in 2026. (Kevin Deitch/Getty)

CROCKET is spending a staggering amount of campaign money on this

Crockett, 44, who is black, is a former state representative and civil rights attorney. She won her seat in 2022 after Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who was retiring, chose her as his successor in Congress.

Crockett, who won reelection last year, has become one of the country’s most popular Democratic politicians over the past two years, thanks to her widespread criticism of Republicans and her social media tirade with Trump, who has repeatedly questioned her intelligence. She made plenty of headlines during her time on the House Oversight Committee.

While her expected Senate run is likely to excite many Democrats, thanks to her energy and proven fundraising ability, her frequent pushback against GOP politicians may energize Republicans.

Among her biggest blunders was calling Abbott, who is partially paralyzed and uses a wheelchair, “Gov. Hot Wheels.”

Crockett has also compared Trump to Adolf Hitler on multiple occasions while accusing aspects of the Republican Party of fascism.

I was specifically nominated for membership in the ranking of House Oversight Committee Earlier this year following the death of her former top Democrat, the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., she dropped out of the race after failing to win a leadership endorsement within her party.

But the Dallas-area Democrat has won plaudits from some party leaders, like former Vice President Kamala Harris, who revealed in her memoir “107 Days” that she supervised Crockett as part of her secret “star project” while in office.

Crockett spoke at the Democratic National Convention last year when Harris was selected as the party’s presidential nominee, a notable milestone for someone who was then a first-term House representative.

She was also facing some tough decisions in her House race after Texas’ new GOP-led congressional map appeared to take her home out of her current district.

Crockett’s expected entry into the Senate race will shift the spotlight away from the GOP primary, where Cornyn, a longtime incumbent who hails from the establishment wing of the party, has cut off a significant lead by Paxton, one of the most prominent MAGA leaders, with Hunt in third place.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seen during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, is running for U.S. Senate in 2026. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The concern among Republicans is that Paxton, who over the past decade has been hit by a series of scandals and legal troubles and is now dealing with a messy divorce, might compete for the seat if he wins the Republican nomination.

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But Crockett’s nomination is likely to change the political equation.

While her aggressive response against Trump and the Republican Party may appeal to the left, it may reduce her chances of winning next November among voters in the general election in Texas.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, last summer funded a Texas Democratic primary poll that showed Crockett as the favorite by double digits. The publicly released poll appears to have been conducted to encourage Crockett to enter the race, with the GOP assuming she would be more likely to beat Allred or Tallarico.