State Rep. James Talarico has won the Democratic Senate nomination in Texas over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, NBC News projects, as the party seeks to put the traditionally Republican state in play this fall.
With 83% of the expected vote in, Talarico had won 53% to Crockett’s 46%. On the Republican side, the heated primary is set to continue for several more weeks, with NBC News projecting that Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton will advance to a runoff.
“We’re about to take back Texas,” Talarico said in a short statement after the race was called.
Crockett conceded to Talarico, saying in a statement Wednesday that she called him to congratulate him on becoming the party's nominee. She urged the party to unite behind Talarico heading into the general election.
"With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win," Crockett said. "I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect democrats up and down the ballot."
Largely aligned on policy, Talarico and Crockett diverged on style and strategy as Democratic voters searched for a fighter who could hand the party its first statewide win in more than 30 years.
Talarico’s supporters believed he is more likely to win statewide by appealing to voters across the political spectrum, pointing to his victory in a Republican state House seat, his populist message and his frequent discussion of his Christian faith.
Crockett’s supporters, meanwhile, described her as a fearless fighter, and Crockett argued that she can build a ‘multi-racial and multi-generational coalition of new voters to win Texas.
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has suggested he can appeal to Democrats, Republicans and independents.
“If you hate politics and you’ve never voted before, you have a place in this campaign. If you have voted for Democrats but you’re tired of D.C. Democrats always folding, you have a place in this campaign. And if you voted for Donald Trump but you are fed up with the extremism and the corruption in our government, you have a place in this campaign,” Talarico said at an event last month in Austin.
Talarico also grabbed headlines in recent days after his interview with Stephen Colbert aired on YouTube instead of CBS in light of what Colbert characterized as the network’s fear of FCC blowback, giving Talarico plenty of attention and fueling his fundraising on the first day of early voting.
Voter confusion in Dallas County, the second-most-populous county in the state that’s represented by Crockett in Congress, added a layer of uncertainty to the race. New rules spearheaded by Republicans caused some voters to go to the wrong polling places. A Dallas County judge ordered polling places to stay open two hours later as a result, but that was temporarily blocked by the Texas Supreme Court, leaving votes cast after 7 p.m. local time in limbo. A similar situation played out at two polling locations in Williamson County, Talarico’s home turf.
“Every vote must be counted. Every voice must be heard,” Talarico told supporters. “The voter suppression in my home county and Congresswoman Crockett’s home county underscores the gravity of this moment.”
Talarico must wait until May 26 to learn who his opponent will be. Paxton and Cornyn will now face off head-to-head in a race that has already drawn nearly $100 million in advertising, largely from Cornyn and his allies. GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt’s entrance into the race meant none of the three major candidates was able to win a majority of the primary vote, pushing the race to a runoff.
With 84% of the expected vote in, Cornyn was leading with 42%, followed by Paxton at 41% and Hunt at 13%.
Cornyn has argued that if Paxton is the nominee, he could put the Senate seat at risk, given his personal and professional controversies. Paxton was impeached over allegations of bribery and corruption in 2023; the state Senate acquitted him. And Paxton’s wife announced last year that she was divorcing him “on biblical grounds.”
Paxton has argued that he can energize President Donald Trump’s core base of supporters who have been less likely to turn out for the GOP in midterm elections.
Paxton and his supporters are also quick to compare him to Trump.
“Since I started running, I’ve been victorious,” Paxton told reporters at a campaign event in Magnolia last month. “Trump went through the very same thing. Look where he’s at. It’s going to be the same way for me. We overcame all of them. You can make up whatever you want to make up. But the allegations are the allegations, and the truth is the truth.”
Paxton knocked Cornyn on the campaign trail for having been in office for too long, as well as his work on work on a bipartisan gun bill in the wake of multiple mass shootings, including one at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, and his stances on a border wall and government funding.
“We are going to defeat John Cornyn, and we’re going to get a U.S. senator that actually listens to us,” Paxton said at the Magnolia event.
Trump remained neutral in the primary, saying he supported all three candidates. But he could take a side in a runoff, according to a person familiar with the White House’s thinking and strategy.
That person said Trump is likely to endorse Cornyn if he keeps the race close, as Cornyn is viewed as the low-risk, least-costly way to ensure a red seat stays in Republicans’ hands. But if Paxton pulls ahead by a sizable, double-digit margin, that could change Trump’s calculus, as he is unlikely to endorse someone he doesn’t think can win.
Trump won Texas by 14 points in the 2024 presidential race, more than doubling his 6-point margin in 2020 as he made gains across the country. But Democrats think the Senate race could be competitive in the November of a midterm election year that favors the party out of power, pointing to then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s coming within 3 points of defeating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.
The prospect of a potentially competitive — and expensive — Senate race in November has caused GOP leaders to rally behind Cornyn. He and his allies have spent a combined $78.5 million on ads in the primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Paxton and his allied outside groups have spent $4.4 million, while Hunt and his allied super PACs have spent $12.2 million.
Cornyn and his allies have worked to stress that Cornyn is a Trump ally, with one recent TV ad from a group tied to Cornyn’s campaign describing him as “tough as nails on illegal immigration” and noting that he “votes with Trump 99% of the time.”
“I’ve been proud to work with President Trump and support him, because his policies are good for Texas and good for the country,” Cornyn said at a campaign event last month in Austin.
But Cornyn has been haunted by some of his past comments about Trump, including his suggestion in 2023 that Trump was not the most electable presidential candidate in 2024.
Cornyn told reporters after the Austin event that his team has a plan to compete in a runoff, acknowledging that fewer voters head to the polls in runoff elections.
“We have our work cut out for us, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be endorsed by virtually every entity that makes endorsements, including the Chamber of Commerce and the Farm Bureau and my friends at the Border Patrol union and everybody in between. And so what we are doing is working with them to encourage them to communicate with their membership,” he said.
“We’re doing things that have never been done before to try and encourage people to turn out to vote,” Cornyn later added.
Lopsided ad spending was also a feature of the Democratic primary, with Talarico and his allies looking to boost his name recognition in the sprawling state. Talarico has described himself as the “underdog” against Crockett, who entered the race in December with a national profile from her clashes with Trump and Republicans.
Talarico and an allied super PAC have spent a combined $25.3 million on ads, while Crockett and an outside group backing her have spent $5.3 million.
