Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) beat U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) on Tuesday night in the highly publicized race for the Democratic Senate primary in Texas.
Just before 3 a.m. ET, several news outlets called the race. After counting 84% of the votes, Talarico led Crockett by 53.2% to 45.5%.
Talarico will face the winner of the runoff election in May between Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Neither of them got a majority in Tuesday’s primary. President Donald Trump did not support either candidate in what has been a very bitter campaign.
Speaking to her supporters at an event just hours before the race was officially called, Crockett said she “ain’t finna concede tonight.”
“Hello, Dallas! How y’all feelin’? So, I just want to be clear, there’s a lot that took place, specifically in Dallas County. I’m sure you’ve been watching the returns, and None of the returns out of Dallas County are quite in yet. Dallas County should have the second-largest voter participation of any county in this state. We don’t have any other results because there was a lot of confusion today. And, so you know, our Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman, he beat me to the punch as myself and Colin Allred, we’re about to file a lawsuit to keep the voting polls open,” Crockett said.
“Ee were able to keep the polls open. But I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised. The reason that we knew that there were problems is because we were receiving the phone calls and the emails. The polls we’re supposed to stay open until 9:00, according to a court order. The Supreme Court just a few minutes ago just said, ‘Shut it down.’ The Supreme Court also said that they are to separate any votes out that came in after 7:00 P.M. So, here’s the deal. I have no idea how it is that clerks are going to know who was in line by what time, because the rule is that, if you’re in line by 7:00, then you get to vote,” she added.
“And so once there was a court order, saying you had until 9:00, I’m sure that there were people that joined the line after 7:00. They now are telling them that you have to separate the votes out. What this means is that we will not know where votes are to be tallied from Election Day out of Dallas County, for sure we won’t know that tonight. So knowing that Dallas County is a big dump of votes, we, in my opinion, will not know the election results overall tonight,” she said.
“We need to see the Dallas County votes to see where they are. I mean, if the early vote comes in, which we may have the early vote soon, if it comes in and I’m losing Dallas County, then we know, kind of, where this thing is going. So — so that’s my news, is that we’re not going to have election results tonight, in my opinion, based upon what specifically is taking place in Dallas County. Unfortunately, this is what Republicans like to do. And so, they specifically targeted Dallas County, and I think we all know why. So, I want you to enjoy yourselves, but I won’t be back tonight because I have no idea of when we’re going to get results, and I fully anticipate it won’t be until tomorrow,” Crockett continued.
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In September, Talarico announced his run for the U.S. Senate seat. This came after a lot of national interviews about Texas Democrats’ decision to leave the state to stop Republican redistricting efforts.
Talarico, a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, made his Christian faith a big part of his campaign. He spoke out against economic inequality and the conservative “co-opting of Christianity.”
Crockett, who is in her second term as a congresswoman, entered the race in December. She is running partly on the insults the president has made about her.
Crockett, who is known for being a vocal critic of the Trump administration, didn’t look good early in the day when prediction markets gave Talarico a big lead, even though ex-Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed Crockett at the last minute.