Texas state Rep. James Talarico secured a victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democrat primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, overturning weeks of polling that had shown the Dallas congresswoman with a significant advantage in the race to determine the party’s nominee in the 2026 contest for the seat currently held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Recent polling ahead of the March 3 primary showed Crockett leading. A University of Texas at Tyler poll conducted Feb. 13–22 surveyed 1,117 registered voters and 959 likely voters and found Crockett with 55 percent support compared to Talarico’s 37 percent, outside the poll’s 3.2-point margin of error. A separate University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll conducted Feb. 2–14 among 369 likely Democrat primary voters showed Crockett ahead, 56 percent to 44 percent.
The primary also drew involvement from former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris recorded robocalls supporting Crockett, telling voters that Texas has the chance to “send a fighter like Jasmine Crockett” to the United States Senate. Meanwhile, Obama previously called Talarico “a really talented young man” during an October podcast interview, a clip Talarico’s campaign later promoted.
Crockett also received support from entertainers during the campaign. Rapper Cardi B posted a video on Instagram urging Texas voters to back Crockett, saying, “If you want somebody to fight for your community, if you want somebody that’s gonna go up there and represent you and represent your issues, please vote for my sister, Jasmine Crockett.” Singer Kelly Rowland also appeared alongside Crockett in a message encouraging participation in the primary, telling voters, “You guys gotta get out there and vote. You know what to do.”
Former congressman Colin Allred, who exited the Senate race in December and later filed to run for Texas’s newly redrawn 33rd Congressional District, also endorsed Crockett. In a video message, Allred criticized Talarico over remarks he viewed as racially disparaging, saying Talarico “had the temerity and the audacity to say to a black woman that he had signed up to run against a mediocre black man.” Allred urged Democrat voters to back Crockett, adding, “Go vote for Jasmine Crockett. This man should not be our nominee for United States Senate.”
Allred later joined Crockett in Dallas on election night to address concerns about voting access during the primary. The two announced a press conference regarding what they described as voter suppression unfolding at Dallas County polling locations following the switch to precinct-based voting. During the event, Crockett urged voters to continue participating despite reported issues at polling sites, telling supporters, “We encourage each and every one of you to remain resilient. We cannot allow this type of behavior to be rewarded, because so long as they know that they can win, even if it means cheating, then they will continue to do it.” She continued by advising voters to remain in line and ensure they reached the correct polling location.
During the campaign, Crockett expressed confidence about competing statewide. In a Feb. 16 interview on CNN’s The Lead, she asserted “Independents and Republicans prefer me” over Talarico, citing recent polling, and said “the numbers don’t suggest” she could not win statewide.
On his campaign website, Talarico argues that the country’s biggest divide is “not left vs. right” but “top vs. bottom.” His “corruption and democracy” page says that “billionaires and their giant corporations pour millions of dollars into campaign contributions and corporate PACs to elect politicians who will do their bidding,” adding that he has “never taken a dime of corporate PAC money,” and pledges that the first legislation he would pursue in the U.S. Senate would be an anti-corruption package to “ban super PACs and corporate PACs,” “ban partisan gerrymandering,” and “increase transparency and accountability in all branches of government.”
Talarico also outlines education priorities on his campaign website, where he notes that before running for office he “taught 6th-grade language arts on the Westside of San Antonio — one of Texas’s poorest zip codes.” A central focus of the page is his opposition to school voucher programs. The website states that his colleagues selected him “to lead the fight against Governor Abbott’s private school voucher scam — a program that is taking tax dollars out of our public schools to subsidize private education, even for billionaires like Elon Musk,” adding that he has “gone toe-to-toe with billionaires like Tim Dunn, Farris Wilks, and Betsy DeVos.” The page also highlights that during his time in the Texas Legislature he “led the fight against private school vouchers that are defunding Texas’ neighborhood public schools.”
On his campaign website’s “Freedom, Family & Faith” page, Talarico describes himself as “a Presbyterian seminarian studying to become a pastor” and writes that his “faith in Jesus leads me to reject Christian Nationalism and commit myself to the project of democracy.” The page also lists policy priorities including “restore reproductive freedom with federal legislation to codify Roe v. Wade” and “defend the separation of church and state and continue to speak out against those who twist the meaning of faith to hurt our neighbors.”
With the Democrat primary decided, Talarico advances to the November 2026 general election. Republicans, meanwhile, are heading to a May runoff after no candidate secured more than 50 percent of the vote. The top two finishers — incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — will face off to determine the GOP nominee.
Follow the livewire coverage of the first Election Day of the 2026 midterms here, as races unfold in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas.
