Thank you, Stephen, for this excellent deep dive. I was wondering if anyone else felt this way about Crockett’s Senatorial campaign ads. The glossy, beatifying production values alone are a turn-off and lend her a disappointing, “super star” status. She’s no longer giving off the upstart, rebellious vibes that got her where she is today. You’ve pointed out, very keenly, the flaws in her approach, and why she’s now coming off as a politics-as-usual candidate. I so appreciate your always spot-on analyses.
Run on ideas. Run on making the government make people's lives easier. Run on making the government work better. Run on using the government to make the community better. And run unashamedly about your ideas and who you are. And if you win, follow through. And if you can't follow through, be damned well clear about who is holding up progress repeatedly, even if it's one of your own.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I think people would like the government to improve their communities. I think everyone wants shit like insurance to be easier to deal with. I think rural people want closer medical centers and grocery stores and public wi-fi and I think everyone is sick to death of corporate control of the government and rich people getting access to our government.
I’m sincerely worried that the outcome will not be in Crockett’s favor and that she’ll lose like Stacy Abrams. I’d much rather see her retain the seat she has as it seems more doable and keeps her in the house coming after the GOP there. We really need her voice and this seems more assured. As much as I’d like to see her flip TX it may not be the actual case.
Well you know what, at least she's trying. Frankly as the FUD has already started from online chaos agents, let's see what happens in the party.
I know lots of people got clout online for haranguing Democrats for not contesting races in unreconstructed state-based regimes of terror. And I can understand a lot of people for not wanting to be sacrificial meat to appease mercurial people who would always be upset with the Democrats.
But hey we're having a primary so that's good. Maybe we also won't be harangued by "CoROnAtiOn" talk.
My issue is having Black women anywhere NEAR these high-profile races as there's always going to be the Abrams Paradox to hurt them. And I'm tired of seeing talented, wonderful Black women getting flayed with bullshit and few people coming to their aid.
If this is it for Jasmine Crockett's political career, at least she went down swinging.
Great minds. I cited Abrams as well. We NEED more strong Black women candidates. And like Abrams, Ms Crockett will get a donation from us in her fight at the very least.
Sorry for being picky, but shouldn't it be 2024? If she said it this summer, it was before all of the elections this year, and before most of the special elections, and most people who bothered to vote have voted the right way this year. Even if she said it more recently, I'm sure that she means in 2024, because those votes, even not in Texas, look good for Dems, and no doubt helped her to decide to run for the Senate.
I like Rep. Crockett, but you are probably right about Texas. Sigh. Mamdani isn't the only Mayor-elect to win on affordability - Miami Mayor-elect Higgins did the same thing. Affordability seems to be a winning issue for politicians of any party; I hope that national Dems take notice and act accordingly.
Hmmm. Coulda done without that primary line up. I really like both of them, but they are WAY different from each other...So if I was in TX I think I'd have to go with Talarico
Its just that I LOVE J.C's unapologetic 'in your face' energy. But I think Talarico is a better choice for THIS moment in TEXAS. A bit more of a fighting chance
I agree with everything you say...BUT, who else do we have to run for that seat? I've been the first to mock the dream of a blue Texas but we still have to try. There will be a primary and the only other name I've heard is Talarico, who has a much lower profile than Crockett, who I love, BTW. I'm not in Texas so I have no say in any of it but if she wants to go for it, I say go for it!
I think Democrats should recruit and run more candidates who could actually win statewide. However, that would mean some degree of moderation on policy or approach. Note that Susan Collins is a reliable GOP vote but she also votes against GOP interests when convenient. She also doesn’t hang out on far-right podcasts.
Dems really do need to figure out their “Red State” approach (which also translates to “do better with rural, noncollege and white voters”). It’ll mean building up a good bench and farm team, finding candidates who’ve discovered what works, and investing in party apparatus at all levels. This “pump cash into ads during election time and run Beto who seems popular among liberals who already agree with me” approach doesn’t cut it.
Too often rank-and-file Democrats demand that their ideal "red state" candidate is someone *they* would want to personally hang out with. (The Beto issue, as you cite.) It's the rural, noncollege, white version of how Dems claim the GOP treats Black Republicans.
Democrats have serious blind spots with this. They roll their eyes if Republicans say they would vote for a woman like Erika Kirk ,but they have done the same thing in a sense with their "idealized" or "appropriate" white male candidates.
Yep—it’d do them a lot of good to spend more time just paying attention to those they’re trying to appeal to. Learn to read them and figure out why you haven’t landed them yet. They’re not unreachable—I’m not talking about MAGAs, but the swing voters—but we have to resist the urge of appealing to what we think they should like, and consider what they do like.
The trick in a red leaning state is to draw a clear distinction between you and the Republican (running as “GOP lite” just makes voters prefer the clear Republican and confuses your own base) but to make sure you are closer to the targeted median voter in that distinction—making the Republican the out of step oddball. Copium like “well he’s not just need to get more nonvoters to the polls” and “most voters agree on our issues, they just don’t vote that way for some reasons” is not going to work.
A Texas Dem candidate could run hard on Trump failing on his promises, getting us to where prices are higher than ever and growing, while businesses are failing and jobs are stagnating and disappearing. And while you’re looking for work, you have to worry about being kidnapped by ICE and having no due process is your skin tone is a bit dark. Texas Hispanics have long been more conservative than national Hispanics but Trump may be losing that demo. It’d still be a hard race though as Cornyn presents as a reasonable pre-Trump conservative and not the weird serial killer that Cruz seems like.
The divide now is getting to be more about college vs noncollege voters rather than race, but either divide is bad for Democrats because they’re on the minority side of both divides. Better figure out how to expand our appeal before we get locked out.
Crockett is not a Texas native — that’s not fatal, of course — but her background is fairly upper middle class. She attended a private Catholic school and a private liberal arts college before graduating from law school. Yet the party wonders why their candidates might struggle with non college, working class voters of all races. The issue isn’t that Crockett is a Black woman but that the party can’t seem to recruit or elevate candidates of any race/gender who have an average background. 58 percent of Texans don’t have college degrees.
We rightly loathe Vance but his background does give him cred with those voters, even if he does resent them.
Sometimes though background can only go so far—otherwise Trump would crater among noncollege voters—but it’s true that many if not most Dem candidates have a real problem connecting with those voters who they once dominated. If their policies are so good for those voters, why can’t they sell them? Can they even speak a language those voters understand, at places they can hear them? This I think is an existential challenge to the party because counting on Republicans to screw up so bad you might win some elections by default isn't much of a plan.
Crockett it seems to me does a great job of firing up very liberal, educated and very online people, which is nice if you’re trying to hold a safe blue district but I’m skeptical about that appeal working statewide in Texas.
Yep. And if anyone thinks it’s “because she’s a black woman” (the go to excuse for people who don’t want to consider candidate quality or campaign strategy) I’ll note that Booker and Skerrill both won statewide.
Of course, *I* really like Jasmine Crockett. She's a street fighter in a party of quislings. But she is *never going to come close in this election*, even if she outright renounces her own race. It's ludicrous to even think so. Texas is a hot mess, and it's not completely because of "gerrymandering", another Democratic fantasy. Gregg Abbott doesn't keep cleaning up because of that.
Thank you, Stephen, for this excellent deep dive. I was wondering if anyone else felt this way about Crockett’s Senatorial campaign ads. The glossy, beatifying production values alone are a turn-off and lend her a disappointing, “super star” status. She’s no longer giving off the upstart, rebellious vibes that got her where she is today. You’ve pointed out, very keenly, the flaws in her approach, and why she’s now coming off as a politics-as-usual candidate. I so appreciate your always spot-on analyses.
Thanks!
Run on ideas. Run on making the government make people's lives easier. Run on making the government work better. Run on using the government to make the community better. And run unashamedly about your ideas and who you are. And if you win, follow through. And if you can't follow through, be damned well clear about who is holding up progress repeatedly, even if it's one of your own.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I think people would like the government to improve their communities. I think everyone wants shit like insurance to be easier to deal with. I think rural people want closer medical centers and grocery stores and public wi-fi and I think everyone is sick to death of corporate control of the government and rich people getting access to our government.
I’m sincerely worried that the outcome will not be in Crockett’s favor and that she’ll lose like Stacy Abrams. I’d much rather see her retain the seat she has as it seems more doable and keeps her in the house coming after the GOP there. We really need her voice and this seems more assured. As much as I’d like to see her flip TX it may not be the actual case.
I think her House seat was redistricted out so she couldn’t keep it.
Well you know what, at least she's trying. Frankly as the FUD has already started from online chaos agents, let's see what happens in the party.
I know lots of people got clout online for haranguing Democrats for not contesting races in unreconstructed state-based regimes of terror. And I can understand a lot of people for not wanting to be sacrificial meat to appease mercurial people who would always be upset with the Democrats.
But hey we're having a primary so that's good. Maybe we also won't be harangued by "CoROnAtiOn" talk.
My issue is having Black women anywhere NEAR these high-profile races as there's always going to be the Abrams Paradox to hurt them. And I'm tired of seeing talented, wonderful Black women getting flayed with bullshit and few people coming to their aid.
If this is it for Jasmine Crockett's political career, at least she went down swinging.
TELL IT!
Great minds. I cited Abrams as well. We NEED more strong Black women candidates. And like Abrams, Ms Crockett will get a donation from us in her fight at the very least.
𝐷𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑑𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟, 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 “𝑀𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑎𝑦 [𝑖𝑛 2025] 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑.”
Sorry for being picky, but shouldn't it be 2024? If she said it this summer, it was before all of the elections this year, and before most of the special elections, and most people who bothered to vote have voted the right way this year. Even if she said it more recently, I'm sure that she means in 2024, because those votes, even not in Texas, look good for Dems, and no doubt helped her to decide to run for the Senate.
I like Rep. Crockett, but you are probably right about Texas. Sigh. Mamdani isn't the only Mayor-elect to win on affordability - Miami Mayor-elect Higgins did the same thing. Affordability seems to be a winning issue for politicians of any party; I hope that national Dems take notice and act accordingly.
It's an uphill battle for any Dem, but Talarico has a much better chance of mounting a strong challenge, IMHO.
Are they running for the same senate seat?
Yup: https://jamestalarico.com/
Hmmm. Coulda done without that primary line up. I really like both of them, but they are WAY different from each other...So if I was in TX I think I'd have to go with Talarico
Its just that I LOVE J.C's unapologetic 'in your face' energy. But I think Talarico is a better choice for THIS moment in TEXAS. A bit more of a fighting chance
:(
Sigh
Same here. I like Crockett, but I agree with Stephen that she can't win a statewide race.
I agree with everything you say...BUT, who else do we have to run for that seat? I've been the first to mock the dream of a blue Texas but we still have to try. There will be a primary and the only other name I've heard is Talarico, who has a much lower profile than Crockett, who I love, BTW. I'm not in Texas so I have no say in any of it but if she wants to go for it, I say go for it!
I think Democrats should recruit and run more candidates who could actually win statewide. However, that would mean some degree of moderation on policy or approach. Note that Susan Collins is a reliable GOP vote but she also votes against GOP interests when convenient. She also doesn’t hang out on far-right podcasts.
Dems really do need to figure out their “Red State” approach (which also translates to “do better with rural, noncollege and white voters”). It’ll mean building up a good bench and farm team, finding candidates who’ve discovered what works, and investing in party apparatus at all levels. This “pump cash into ads during election time and run Beto who seems popular among liberals who already agree with me” approach doesn’t cut it.
Too often rank-and-file Democrats demand that their ideal "red state" candidate is someone *they* would want to personally hang out with. (The Beto issue, as you cite.) It's the rural, noncollege, white version of how Dems claim the GOP treats Black Republicans.
Democrats have serious blind spots with this. They roll their eyes if Republicans say they would vote for a woman like Erika Kirk ,but they have done the same thing in a sense with their "idealized" or "appropriate" white male candidates.
Yep—it’d do them a lot of good to spend more time just paying attention to those they’re trying to appeal to. Learn to read them and figure out why you haven’t landed them yet. They’re not unreachable—I’m not talking about MAGAs, but the swing voters—but we have to resist the urge of appealing to what we think they should like, and consider what they do like.
Go for it, yes. Expect victory, no.
The trick in a red leaning state is to draw a clear distinction between you and the Republican (running as “GOP lite” just makes voters prefer the clear Republican and confuses your own base) but to make sure you are closer to the targeted median voter in that distinction—making the Republican the out of step oddball. Copium like “well he’s not just need to get more nonvoters to the polls” and “most voters agree on our issues, they just don’t vote that way for some reasons” is not going to work.
A Texas Dem candidate could run hard on Trump failing on his promises, getting us to where prices are higher than ever and growing, while businesses are failing and jobs are stagnating and disappearing. And while you’re looking for work, you have to worry about being kidnapped by ICE and having no due process is your skin tone is a bit dark. Texas Hispanics have long been more conservative than national Hispanics but Trump may be losing that demo. It’d still be a hard race though as Cornyn presents as a reasonable pre-Trump conservative and not the weird serial killer that Cruz seems like.
The divide now is getting to be more about college vs noncollege voters rather than race, but either divide is bad for Democrats because they’re on the minority side of both divides. Better figure out how to expand our appeal before we get locked out.
Crockett is not a Texas native — that’s not fatal, of course — but her background is fairly upper middle class. She attended a private Catholic school and a private liberal arts college before graduating from law school. Yet the party wonders why their candidates might struggle with non college, working class voters of all races. The issue isn’t that Crockett is a Black woman but that the party can’t seem to recruit or elevate candidates of any race/gender who have an average background. 58 percent of Texans don’t have college degrees.
We rightly loathe Vance but his background does give him cred with those voters, even if he does resent them.
Sometimes though background can only go so far—otherwise Trump would crater among noncollege voters—but it’s true that many if not most Dem candidates have a real problem connecting with those voters who they once dominated. If their policies are so good for those voters, why can’t they sell them? Can they even speak a language those voters understand, at places they can hear them? This I think is an existential challenge to the party because counting on Republicans to screw up so bad you might win some elections by default isn't much of a plan.
Crockett it seems to me does a great job of firing up very liberal, educated and very online people, which is nice if you’re trying to hold a safe blue district but I’m skeptical about that appeal working statewide in Texas.
I think Crockett would struggle to win New Jersey or Virginia (both of which state and federal Dem candidates have carried)
Yep. And if anyone thinks it’s “because she’s a black woman” (the go to excuse for people who don’t want to consider candidate quality or campaign strategy) I’ll note that Booker and Skerrill both won statewide.
Of course, *I* really like Jasmine Crockett. She's a street fighter in a party of quislings. But she is *never going to come close in this election*, even if she outright renounces her own race. It's ludicrous to even think so. Texas is a hot mess, and it's not completely because of "gerrymandering", another Democratic fantasy. Gregg Abbott doesn't keep cleaning up because of that.