Crockett vs. Talarico is a clash of Democratic styles in Texas primary

• The primary has highlighted a debate within the party over electability versus identity, with Crockett arguing that criticism of her style is racist and sexist.
• Talarico has surprisingly outraised Crockett and gained national attention, focusing his campaign on affordability and health care.
• While both candidates are progressive, they differ on how to win in Republican-leaning Texas and have clashed over their records and campaign styles.

EL PASO, TEXAS − Of all the Democratic primaries that will decide the party's 2026 congressional candidate slate, none have captured national attention quite like the increasingly bitter March 3 Senate showdown in Texas.

In one corner is James Talarico, a state legislator who exudes a friendly youth pastor vibe as he urges voters to think beyond partisan divisions.

In the other is Jasmine Crockett, a quick-witted member of Congress who adopted a clap-back style aimed President Donald Trump and his allies.

Both candidacies arrive at a time when public approval of the Democratic Party is low, according to a survey released by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in February, despite the party's strong performance in recent elections, as opposition to Trump drives Democratic turnout.

But the first week of early voting in Texas, which began Feb. 17, shows Democrats outpacing Republicans at the polls. That heavy turnout is more than double what it was in the past two election cycles on the Democratic side, reports say.

"We're hoping and praying that the surge is for me because our theory of the case, which was more so for the general election, was that I could excite new people because my candidacy in general is just different," Crockett said in a one-on-one interview with USA TODAY.

"I mean, I'm not your traditional candidate."

Talarico's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment until after publication, but he continues to gain ground despite initially being considered the underdog when Crockett entered the race in December, three months after he did.

In February, he outpaced Crockett, a former civil rights lawyer and fundraising juggernaut, by raking in $13 million in donations compared to her $6.5 million haul. He scored a significant profile boost in late February, too, after late-night TV host Stephen Colbert alleged CBS blocked him from airing an interview with the 36-year-old state legislator, fearing reprisal from the Trump administration.

There are marginal policy differences between the two campaigns, which jostle over who is a tad more progressive, particularly on health care.

But the debate is mostly over how Democrats can win general election voters in reliably Republican Texas. Crockett says the accusation that she is unelectable is racist and sexist. She would be the first Black senator from the Lone Star State.

Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, said Crockett "gets penalized for being aggressive" whereas white male Democrats with a similarly combative approach like California Gov. Gavin Newsom do not.

"It's complicated because the principal argument that the Talarico camp has been using regarding why people should vote for him rather than Crockett is that he has an electability advantage in November," Jones said.

"But it's tough to disassociate that with the counterargument that Crockett gives them a worse chance of winning," he added. "And since the two don't differ much on policy, it has to do with demographic characteristics or effectively, Jasmine Crockett is an outspoken Black woman."

Race and electability haunt Texas Democratic primary

Trump carried Texas by roughly 16 percentage points in 2024, and that same year Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz won reelection by about 9 percentage points.

It's a state often associated with deeply conservative values that hasn't sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988. But Democrats regularly raise hopes that it could be competitive, especially after seeing huge swings towards their side, such as a special election for a Texas state Senate seat on Jan. 31 in a district that Trump carried by 17 percentage points two years ago.

If GOP voters select the controversial state Attorney General Ken Paxton as their Senate nominee on March 3, some Democrats believe an upset is possible. More sober observers see it as a potential way to divert Republican resources away from other races this November.

But that debate has been eclipsed by a deeper split over electability and identity that have revealed a racial divide among Texas Democrats.

Yol-Itzma Aguirre, a student at Texas Women's University, said Crockett's energy is what the party needs and she has "no doubt" she can flip the seat.

"For me, it’s really important that we have someone who knows what they’re doing because of ICE, because of the detention centers (and) because of these things I’m personally battling here on the border," she said.

"You want your best fighter in this fight we're having now."

Aguirre said she has heard from many Democratic voters who support the congresswoman, but doubt that a Black woman can win in Texas.

"You can’t live in fear like that. Once upon a time as Mexicans, we didn’t have the right to vote, until we could. Once upon a time there wasn’t interracial marriage, until there was. Once upon a time, women didn’t have the right to vote, until they did," Aguirre said. "Sometimes, you have to be the one to break barriers."

That assertion by Crockett and her supporters generates eye rolls from some national observers, who argue that it is her partisan reputation and campaign style, which critics say has been more self-centered than populist-minded, that are at issue.

In her first video launching her Senate bid, for example, Crockett is featured looking off screen with Trump's voice calling her a "very low IQ person," and hurling other insults before she turns to the camera and smiles. 

Talarico's launch video, by contrast, showcased him speaking on the back of a rusty pickup truck surrounded by dozens of supporters. He downplayed partisanship and condemned billionaires, emphasizing the country's biggest divide is "top vs. the bottom."

David de la Fuente, a senior analyst at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, said Talarico turned this race into a "dog fight" because he has outworked Crockett in terms of fundraising and also played the politics of the moment better.

"Democratic primary voters care a lot about electability in purple and red places, and Texas certainly is a red place that it's hard to elect the Democrats statewide," de la Fuente said. "We haven't done it in 30 years, so electability is top of mind for voters."

In a Feb. 23 post on X, the Talarico campaign touted several Texas Republican voters who said they had voted for Trump in the last presidential election but will support him in 2026. Many praised his Christian values, building a "bigger tent" and his "non-divisive" approach to politics.

But some of Talarico's voters who spoke with USA TODAY said they explicitly want him to pull the party further to the left.

Abraham Rivera, a 32-year-old naturalized citizen born in Mexico, said Democrats have been plagued with defeats over what he described as its "neoliberal" approach to important issues, referring to a moderate ideology associated with Democrats like former President Bill Clinton.

He said Talarico's "welcome mat and a lock on the door" framing on immigration − which seeks to combine a compassionate pathway to citizenship with strict enforcement − makes sense to people who live along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.

"I've always been a Democrat, but my politics are more progressive than the party as a whole," he said.

That contradiction about Talarico's appeal − coming off as progressive to voters but described as more moderate by pundits − is why Crockett believes the primary argument against her is laced with bias. She has been returning fire at her opponent, lobbing attacks ad claiming the state legislator, "doesn't practice what he preaches."

For his part, Talarico has tried to avoid attacking Crockett directly, but he has still stumbled on issues of race such as when a TikTok influencer alleged in February that he called former Senate candidate Colin Allred, who was running for the seat until Crockett entered, a "mediocre Black man."

"In my praise of Congresswoman Crockett, I described Congressman Allred’s method of campaigning as mediocre – but his life and service are not," Talarico said in a Feb. 2 statement. "I would never attack him on the basis of race."

Crockett also called an ad coming from a political action committee supporting Talarico "straight up racist" for darkening her skin, but she herself has been slammed for suggesting in a 2024 Vanity Fair profile that Hispanics who voted for Trump had "almost like a slave mentality."

Medicare for All or Y'all: Two progressives jousting over their records

Talarico's campaign is largely focused on affordability, especially in access to health care.

"The state of our union is unaffordable," Talarico said in a Feb. 24 post on X during the president's State of the Union address.  

The candidate has Type 1 diabetes, and after a medical emergency he successfully pushed through a bill for a state insulin price cap at $25. He has made fair insulin pricing a campaign point in his 2026 Senate run, too.

"In the wealthiest country in human history, no one should die because they can't afford their health insurance," he said in a Feb. 21 post on X. "We as lawmakers have a special obligation to heal people, not make them sicker."

But Crockett argues she has the more progressive record, noting she was a founding member of the statehouse's progressive caucus when she was a Texas legislator in 2021.

She also mocked Talarico for trotting out an idea he dubs "Medicare for Y'all" that would allow every American to join Medicare, providing affordable not-for-profit insurance. Some argue that position is nothing more than a watered-down version of the public option, which was ditched by the Obama administration to appease conservative critics of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Instead, Crockett supports Americans joining a single-payer system, better known as Medicare for All, which is backed by left-leaning figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez, D-New York.

"There is this belief that he is super-progressive," Crockett told USA TODAY. "His record does not match up with that ... and I can tell you that he's trying to play on it to hopefully confuse people about who's quote, unquote 'most progressive.'"

After publication of this story, Talarico responded to the congresswoman's criticism directly by pointing out that between the two of them, he is the only contender "who’s been in a competitive general election" when he flipped his current seat in 2018. The last time a Democrat had represented that state legislative district, which is just north of Austin, was in 2008.

"I did that by building a big coalition — firing up Democrats, bringing in new voters, peeling off independents and some Republicans," Talarico told USA TODAY in a March 1 statement. "Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, whether you're a progressive or a conservative, the real fight in this country is not left vs. right, it’s top vs. bottom."

Crockett is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus with one of the more liberal voting records in Congress. She is being backed by organizations such as EMILYs List and liberal lawmakers such as California Rep. Ro Khanna.

On Feb. 27, former Vice President Kamala Harris recorded a robocall in support of the congresswoman. The 2024 Democratic nominee for president, who may make a third White House bid in 2028, described Crockett as a "fighter" with the "experience and record to hold Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies accountable.”

But that hasn't stopped liberal groups, such as Latino Victory Fund and Progressive Change Campaign Committee, from backing Talarico.

"Are we just an anti-Trump party or do we build a durable supermajority by advancing a vision of fighting for working people, holding corporations accountable, and materially improving people’s lives," Adam Green, PCCC's co-founder, said in the Feb. 24 release.

"James Talarico has risen to national prominence by effortlessly grounding his candidacy in bold economic populism, which is an important marker for how other Democrats should campaign."

Nina Turner, a former co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, said if Democrats want to be competitive in red or purple areas after being trounced by Trump in 2024, they have to be comfortable with robust, and sometimes testy primaries.

Turner, who hasn't endorsed either candidate, said both should be pushed to be more progressive in certain areas, but that the argument being made against Crockett is one that still caters more toward Republicans than energizing the base.

"People don't vote Republican-lite," she said. "If you are a Republican, you are going to vote for the real thing and for the life of me I can't understand why Democrats have not learned that lesson."

Other progressive groups were still mulling who to support less than a week before the election, reflecting how close the split is on the political left.

In an email message to supporters obtained by USA TODAY, Our Revolution, which was founded as a continuation of Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign, asked its members to weigh in on who to endorse. Crockett and Talarico both "have built reputations for taking on MAGA extremism" and standing up for working-class Americans, the email said.

Rivera, the Talarico supporter, told the USA TODAY Network he wants Democrats "to be bolder, clearer about its values" given the big problems that lay ahead such as health care, immigration and money in politics.

"Even where I’d like to see Talarico go further left, I think he's moving the conversation in the right direction and offering a serious, values-driven alternative," he said. "That’s why I’m supporting him."

Adam Powell reports for the El Paso Times, part of the USA TODAY Network.

This story was updated with additional information