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Crockett Lining Up Senate Race Director
Despite Fears Democrats Can't Be Cornyn
Capitol Inside
October 30, 2025
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett revealed on Wednesday that she has a campaign for the U.S. Senate on the drawing boards and is taking steps to get it off the ground with discussions on its management under way amid signs from recent polling that she would be the Democratic primary favorite if she enters the race.
But Crockett acknowledged that the deliberations on a potential bid for a promotion in 2026 could hinge on whether she and her team think U.S. Senator John Cornyn will stave off challenges from Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt in the GOP nomination chase.
"I mean, I'm going to be flat out with you and tell you that I don't think there's a Democrat that can take out Cornyn," Crockett told the Politico White House bureau chief Dasha Burns on her show The Conversation.
Crockett
could enter the ring as the candidate to beat in the Democratic primary competition for the U.S. Senate seat based on the relatively high ratings she's received in polls that have been taken in Texas in the past few months. But Crockett would be forced to give up a seat in Congress for a gamble that she'd have little or no chance to win if the incumbent Republican emerges victorious from round one or a runoff based on her own admission in the podcast.
The second-term congressional Democrat from Dallas appears to think that she could make history if Paxton ousts Cornyn in the primary or Hunt finds a way to beat the more experienced and better-known pair of rivals in an upset for the ages in the fight to be the nominee a year from now. But Crockett would have no guarantee of defeating Colin Allred or State Rep. James Talarico in overtime on their side of the aisle next year. She's gearing for a potential Senate bid nonetheless.
"I am seriously weighing it to the extent that I'm about to spend a lot of money to get data," Crockett said. "So, I'm a data-driven person."
Crockett said that she'd met with someone who she declined to identify about the possibility of directing a U.S. Senate campaign if she decides to pursue the seat. Crockett said the two discussed the potential opportunity "face to face" a few days ago.
"It's somebody that I've known for years," Crockett said, referring to the prospective campaign operative as "him" in the interview. "It's somebody that I trust and somebody who's very experienced."
Crockett had higher favorability ratings among Democratic voters than either Allred or Talarico in a University of Texas poll that was released earlier on Wednesday. Crockett was rated as favorable by 62 percent of the voters who identified themselves as Democrats compared to 6 percent who saw in an unfavorable light.
Fifty-nine percent of the Democrats who participated in the survey gave Allred a favorable rating versus 10 percent who disagree. Forty-three percent of the Democratic voters in the sample viewed Talarico favorably compared to 5 percent who did not. Crockett and Allred, who are both Black, have substantially more name ID as Talarico at this point. Allred was the party's nominee in a losing race against U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in 2024.
"I will tell you that I personally believe that Texas needs to do something different if they want a different result," Crockett said. "That's just the bottom line."
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