State Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the hotly contested race.
Crockett, who was, throughout her campaign, the target of racist attacks frequently directed at Black American women who run for high office, waited until today to announce acceptance of the results because massive Republican voter suppression efforts in her home area of Dallas caused confusion, delays in counting ballots, and disenfranchisement of large numbers of voters.
There were also GOP-inspired vote suppression efforts in areas of the state where Talarico was leading.
The racist attacks were underway in Texas long before the open contest between Crocektt and Talarico, starting with the Trump orders to state Republicans to gerrymander congressional districts in the state aimed at eliminating Black, Latino, and pro labor candidates.
GOP gerrymandering of districts all over Texas already triggered confusion, with thousands of voters not being properly informed about where they should vote. The GOP feared Crockett, a strong challenger to the entire Trump agenda, could win in November, and they launched a special vote suppression effort in Dallas, her home area, yesterday, to make it difficult for Crockett, if she won, to reach out to Talarico supporters whom she would need to win in November.
Polls indicated that Crockett had a good chance of winning in November. Now that Talarico has won, the GOP will be going after him, and corporate Democrats controlling funds in the national Senatorial campaign offices can’t be counted on to send money Talarico’s way either.
The Associated Press called the race for Talarico shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Both candidates were strong opponents of Trump’s attacks on democracy and his economic policy of favoring the interests of billionaires over those of the working class.
Despite racist attacks on her campaign with people saying a Black woman could not win statewide in Texas, Crockett announced this morning that she had called Talarico to congratulate him. She said she would continue to campaign for a Democratic victory in the Senate race.
“Texas is primed to turn blue, and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person,” Crockett declared.
“This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I’m committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”
On the Republican side of things, the extreme right and criminally charged Attorney General Ken Paxton came within a point of matching long-time Republican Sen. John Cornyn. With no one receiving the 50 percent plus one votes required to win the GOP primary, Cornyn and Paxton will compete in a late May runoff election.
The confusion in Crockett’s home area of Dallas was the direct result of GOP maneuvering, much of it set off when Trump demanded the party redistrict to shut out Democrats. There was a day of disruption yesterday over a rule change imposed by Republicans that resulted in many voters being blocked from voting because they showed up to vote at places they were told were the wrong locations for them.
Callers to GOP run voter information websites actually gave voters false information about where they were supposed to vote.
A local judge agreed to a Democratic Party request to extend polling hours in the county to 9 p.m. Then, Attorney General Ken Paxton demanded that the Texas Supreme Court rescind the extension. That court ordered that votes cast by people who were not in line to vote by 7 p.m.—when polls were originally set to close—should be separated out, casting uncertainty over whether those ballots would be included in the county’s final tally.
Shortly after 9 p.m., Crockett told supporters that she did not expect full election results until the following day.
“Every vote must be counted, every voice must be heard,” both she and Talarico said.
Some in the Democratic Party expressed concern about Crockett’s electability in a red state. She had described these concerns as racist dog whistles, and she called a pro-Talarico super PAC’s ad, citing the apparent GOP preference for her nomination, “straight up racist” and accused the ad of darkening her skin.
Republicans stoked racism and division. Cornyn called Crockett’s decision to run a “gift,” and Talarico’s potential nomination “dangerous.”
During early voting, Gov. Greg Abbott ran an intense campaign against Crockett as a “far-left antagonist.” Crockett noted that his efforts were proof that she was the candidate the GOP believed could win.
The pro-ICE forces got into the act against Crockett. There were online messages about her opposition to ICE tactics, calling her a threat to national security.
The Texas AFL-CIO sponsored a debate in January during which both candidates voiced essentially the same positions on all the labor-related issues on which they were questioned.
The task in Texas now, campaign observers note, will be to find as many avenues as possible to unite on an agenda to fight for an economy for workers, not billionaires, and to use the campaign to emphasize the struggle to preserve unity in that fight. Talarico will have to work hard to win the backing of people who backed Crockett. Republicans can be counted on to throw every possible roadblock in that path, observers say.
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