Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett didn’t plan on running for Texas Senate. In fact as a junior member of Congress, her only goal was to serve the people in her state. Then, folks in Texas called on her to stand up to President Donald Trump, and that’s exactly what she’s doing.
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Crockett told The Root about a man named Rick, who historically had been a Republican until he became unsatisfied with his party. Rick — now an Independent — emailed Crockett, begging her to run for Senate. “I think your moral clarity in this moment is what we need,” he told the congresswoman.
It’s this bipartisan support for Crockett that’s motivating her campaign.
“You never describe a leader as weak,” Crockett said. “No one would ever at the word weak, and right now — and for a very long time — I have heard all over the country, not just in Texas, that [Americans] feel like Democrats are weak. But if anybody asks about me, they don’t say it. They don’t say that at all.”
But it’s more than just about being a rising star in the Democratic party, she told us. Crockett is looking to change the narrative about weak Democrats, a view that’s run rampant since former President Barack Obama left office in 2016.
An October Pew Research study found nearly 75 percent of Americans are frustrated with the Democratic party. If you ask Crockett, it boils down to members of her party trying to be something they are not. “When Democrats go in and they seemingly try to change their strikes to sound like a Republican, I think that they not only lose Democrats and turn them off because it’s like, why go vote for you,” she told us.
“Number two, I think that Republicans look at people that seemingly are a little wishy washy or whatever as people that don’t have a backbone,” Crockett continued.
Democratic leaders like Minority House Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have faced accusations of being too passive in the face of Trump, especially when it came down to the government shutdown in October and the Big, Beautiful Bill — the summer GOP-led spending bill.
That’s why Crockett said her campaign is changing up the formula for winning back voters. “I don’t think that the win is going through people that are wanting to self identify with what’s going on right now,” she said. “I think, if you’re proud of this, then I’m not your candidate.”
The Democrat continued spelling out exactly what’s been holding her party back. “We have expended so many resources doing that over and over and over believing that that is the win, and we keep losing,” she added. “I don’t plan to run the way that we’ve always run in Texas. You know why? ‘Cause we’ve been losing.”
The state of Texas was solidly Democrat until voters began shifting more Republican around 1961. That’s when John Tower won a special election, becoming the first Republican elected in the state since Reconstruction, the Texas Tribune reported.
But it’s not enough simply to acknowledge the problems facing Texas Democrats. Crockett wants to act. “I need to be talking to people that feel like nobody’s talking to them. It may be why they’re not voting,” she told us.
To the Democrats’ credit, the recent Nov. 4 election saw a massive blue wave across the country. According to Crockett, this is proof that you can’t count her party out just yet.
“I think that it’s also an illusion that there’s a certain kind of candidate that gets Republicans,” the Congresswoman added. “If that’s the case, I need someone to explain to me how it is that [New York City Mayor-elect Zohran] Mamdami got Trump voters; how it is that AOC [N.Y. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] got Trump voters; how it is that Obama got Trump voters.”
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