Morning Digest: Major shakeup shines spotlight on revamped Texas Senate race
Jasmine Crockett enters, Colin Allred leaves, and a showdown looms with James Talarico
Leading Off
Texas
Texas politics experienced a dramatic shakeup just ahead of Monday’s candidate filing deadline, with one high-profile House Democrat waging a last-minute bid for the Senate; a prominent Senate contender dropping his campaign for the Democratic nod to seek a comeback in the House; and still another Democrat unexpectedly opting to leave the House to run for local office.
The field of Democratic Senate hopefuls in particular looks very different compared to the way it did just a day earlier.
The upheaval began on Monday morning when former Rep. Colin Allred, who was running a second time after unsuccessfully challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last year, announced he would instead campaign for the latest iteration of his old House seat, now numbered the 33rd. The move, though, sets up a hotly contested primary between Allred and his successor, Rep. Julie Johnson.
Later that same day, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat in her second term, confirmed that she would join the Senate contest—reportedly after asking Allred to step aside.
And just before the deadline, longtime Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey submitted paperwork to run for Tarrant County judge rather than seek reelection in the 30th District, which will now be an open seat. Veasey’s decision was first reported by Punchbowl’s Ally Mutnick 35 minutes before filing closed, and he only issued a formal announcement afterward.
You can find a complete roundup of the late-breaking developments in Texas’ House and local elections in our special section just below. But it’s the Senate reset that’s drawn by far the most attention.
Crockett, who would be the first Black woman to represent the Lone Star State in the upper chamber, will face state Rep. James Talarico in the March 3 primary for the seat held by GOP incumbent John Cornyn.
At least one other person has filed to seek the Democratic nomination, so it’s possible that neither Crockett nor Talarico will win the majority of the vote they’d need to avert a runoff on May 26.
Crockett launched her campaign by arguing that she could become the first Democrat to win statewide since 1994 by mobilizing voters whom her party has failed to turn out in the past.
“There are those that say, ‘Ain’t no way; we done tried it 50 kinds of ways,” Crockett told the audience at her kickoff rally. “Let me be clear. Y’all ain’t never tried it the J.C. way.”
Crockett has surged to prominence by frequently skewering Donald Trump and Republicans during congressional hearings and media appearances.
One of her most oft-quoted lines came last year when she called out far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body.” Crockett soon said she’d trademarked the term “B6” and announced it would appear on swag in the “Crockett Clapback Collection” she was selling to raise money for Democratic candidates.
However, the congresswoman’s track record of vocal commentary also has Republicans crowing that she’d make an easy opponent. Crockett attracted widespread criticism in March when she dubbed GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, “Governor Hot Wheels.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the governor’s condition,” Crockett wrote on social media in response to the outcry. “I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants into communities led by Black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable.” She added, “Literally, the next line I said was that he was a “Hot A** Mess,” referencing his terrible policies.”
Cornyn has especially relished the idea of taking on Crockett in a general election. He responded to her entry by telling Semafor, “Am I hiding my glee? I’ll try to wipe the smile off my face, I would say it’s a gift.”
The senator, though, may not have much else to be gleeful about in the coming year. Polls continue to show him struggling against his two main intraparty opponents, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt.
CNN reported just before Thanksgiving that Cornyn’s allies, who dread the idea of having the scandal-ridden Paxton as their nominee, had waged a late effort to persuade Hunt to drop out of the race. The congressman, though, declared that he wasn’t going anywhere and remained a candidate for Senate when filing closed on Monday.
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Texas
TX-09
Former Republican Rep. Steve Stockman, who spent time in both the House and federal prison, launched yet another comeback bid just ahead of Monday’s filing deadline.
Stockman, dubbed “Congressman Clueless” by Texas Monthly after he lucked into a House seat during the 1994 GOP wave, was just as quickly swept out two years later. He worked his way back into the House in 2012 but pursued a hopeless Senate bid rather than run for another term.
Stockman was later convicted of fraud and sentenced to 10 years behind bars, but his sentence was commuted by Donald Trump in 2020. He faces several other notable Republicans who are hoping to flip the Houston-area 9th District, which is now an open seat thanks to the extreme GOP gerrymander that drove Democratic Rep. Al Green to seek reelection in the 18th District instead.
TX-10
Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, who’d been pursuing a long-shot bid for Texas’ open 10th District, switched gears just before filing closed to run for state comptroller instead. She faces two lesser-known opponents in the primary, though Republicans have a hotly contested race. Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, who was appointed to the post in July, has drawn challenges from former state Sen. Don Huffines and Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick.
TX-23
Former Republican Rep. Quico Canseco, who was last seen taking eighth place in the 2018 primary for Texas’ 21st District, announced at the last minute that he’d take a shot at reclaiming the conservative 23rd District, the constituency he represented for a single term more than a decade ago.
The problem for Canseco, though, is that the 23rd already has both an incumbent, GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, and a high-profile challenger, gun enthusiast Brandon Herrera. Last year, Herrera forced Gonzales into a runoff and nearly prevailed, though the congressman survived by a narrow 51-49 margin.
TX-30
Texas’ redrawn 30th District in the Dallas area very nearly hosted an incumbent vs. incumbent battle between Rep. Marc Veasey and Jasmine Crockett in next year’s Democratic primary. Instead, it’s an unexpected open seat—and only one major candidate wound up running.
That contender is minister Frederick Haynes, who leads a 13,000-member megachurch and also happens to be Crockett’s own pastor. At 65, Haynes is also considerably older than the 44-year-old congresswoman he’s seeking to replace.
He’s likely to have a smooth path to Congress, though. Only two minor opponents filed to run in the primary, and whoever wins the nod won’t have much trouble in the general election in this safely blue seat.
TX-33
Former Rep. Colin Allred announced Monday that he would run for the revamped 33rd District to keep “serving my community and our state”—in a statement that did not mention that the constituency he’s seeking is already served by a Democrat, Rep. Julie Johnson.
But Johnson, who decided to run for the Dallas-based 33rd in September after the GOP made her 32nd District all but unwinnable for Democrats, had no qualms about blasting her immediate predecessor for ending his Senate campaign to run against her.
“This new district deserves representation that has been present in the tough moments, including throughout the redistricting fight, instead of parachuting back when another campaign doesn’t work out,” Johnson said of Allred, who gave up the 32nd last year to wage an unsuccessful campaign for Texas’ other Senate seat.
Johnson’s backers at the LGBT Equality PAC also blasted Allred after they learned about his upcoming plan to switch races the previous day.
“At a time when Trump and the GOP target the LGBTQ community, the last thing a Democrat should do is try to unseat the first openly LGBTQ Member of Congress from Texas,” the group tweeted. “Unconscionable.”
Just under a third of the residents of the new 33rd live in the old 32nd, and many have seen both Allred and Johnson on their ballots. Allred, though, would have defeated Cruz by a wide 75-23 margin in the redrawn 33rd, according to data from Dave’s Redistricting App and the Redistricting Data Hub.
Tarrant County, TX Judge
Populous Tarrant County, which is home to Fort Worth, will host a contested Democratic primary for the right to take on County Judge Tim O’Hare, a far-right Republican in his first term.
The most prominent name belongs to Rep. Marc Veasey, who, at the 11th hour, opted to run for county judge rather than seek an eighth term in Congress. (In Texas, county judge is an executive rather than judicial position, the equivalent of county executive in other states.)
But he’s not alone. Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons also jumped in over the weekend, and her story will feel all too familiar to Texas Democrats. This summer, Republicans on the commission, led by O’Hare, pushed through a new map that made her district considerably redder.
A third candidate, consultant Millennium Anton C. Woods, is in the race as well. While he earned little support in his campaign for mayor of Fort Worth last year, his presence could push the nominating contest into a runoff. Tarrant is a longtime GOP stronghold that Donald Trump carried 52-47 last year, but in 2020, Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win it since Lyndon Johnson when he prevailed 49.3 to 49.1.
Election Night
Tuesday brings us the last major election night of the year, led by a special election in Georgia for a seat Democrats are hoping to flip, as well as a pair of mayoral runoffs on opposite sides of the country.
In Georgia, the battle for the vacant 121st District in the Athens area pits Democrat Eric Gisler, who works in the insurance technology industry, against Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest IV, the owner of a trucking company.
Normally, this constituency leans well to the right. Donald Trump carried it by a comfortable 56-43 margin in 2024, according to calculations by The Downballot. However, in a pair of races for the state’s Public Service Commission last month, Democrats carried the district by a wide 63-37 spread. Those results, plus strong Democratic performances in special elections nationwide, have fueled Gisler’s hopes of pulling an upset.
Democrats in Florida are also trying to score a pickup in the race for mayor of Miami, where Republican Francis Suarez cannot seek a third term. Former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, who is hoping to become the first Democrat to lead the city in the 21st century, faces former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, a Republican who previously served as the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under George W. Bush.
Higgins has reason to be optimistic even though Miami, like most of the state, has swung hard to the right over the last decade. Higgins and a second Democrat, Ken Russell, together amassed 54% of the vote in last month’s officially nonpartisan primary, while Gonzalez and the rest of the GOP field combined for just 36%. Since then, Democrats have enjoyed a massive advantage in TV ad spending.
Republicans, though, hope that turnout will be considerably better for them in the runoff than it was last month. Following the first round of voting, Donald Trump urged GOP voters to back Gonzalez in what’s become the city’s most partisan mayoral race in recent memory. A further complication for Higgins is that Russell refused to endorse anyone in the runoff, but Republicans were also slow to consolidate behind Gonzalez.
Out in New Mexico, meanwhile, it’s Republicans who are trying to flip a big-city mayor’s office. Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat who is seeking a historic third term, is trying to fend off former Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, a Republican who badly lost a 2008 U.S. House race to future Sen. Martin Heinrich.
The incumbent, however, took just 36% of the vote in the Nov. 4 nonpartisan primary, while White outpaced former U.S. Attorney Alexander Uballez, a Democrat who was running to Keller’s left, 31-19 for second place. Uballez, after several weeks of hesitation, endorsed Keller late last month.
Albuquerque has remained Democratic turf in national elections, but White’s allies are counting on fatigue with Keller to give them an opening. The mayor has fought back by tying his opponent to Trump.
There are several other legislative special elections on Tuesday, mostly on uncompetitive turf. However, one race for a Democratic-held seat in the Florida House stands out.
Once again, like so much of the Sunshine State, Palm Beach County’s 90th District has moved toward the GOP in recent years. While Joe Biden carried the district 60-39 in 2020, Kamala Harris won it by a skinnier 55-44 spread last year. However, the Democratic candidate, Delray Beach Commissioner Rob Long, has widely outraised Republican Maria Zack, an election conspiracy theorist.
You can keep track of every special election by bookmarking The Downballot’s Big Board.
Senate
CO-Sen
State Sen. Julie Gonzales announced Monday that she would run against Sen. John Hickenlooper as an “insurgent progressive” in Colorado’s June 30 Democratic primary.
Gonzales, who was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America when she was first elected in 2018—she now informs 9News her “membership has lapsed”—launched her campaign by faulting the senator for voting to confirm almost half of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. She told the Colorado Sun’s Jesse Paul, “I haven’t heard good rationale as to how voting for those nominees actually made Coloradans’ lives better.”
Ideology isn’t the only difference between the two candidates. The 42-year-old challenger, who would be both the first woman to represent Colorado in the Senate and the first Latina elected statewide, is three decades younger than Hickenlooper, who is white. The senator, 73, said in August that next year’s campaign would be his last.
Hickenlooper, who previously served as both mayor of Denver and as governor, has long been one of the most prominent Democrats in the Centennial State, as well as a high-profile centrist. That moderate image aided his rise when Colorado was still a swing state, but he seems to recognize the state’s shift to the left has made it a potential liability.
Paul writes that the senator has adopted more progressive rhetoric in recent weeks to guard himself against Gonzales, including a tweet last month declaring, “We’re the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Health care should be a right, not a privilege.”
Hickenlooper’s team responded to Gonzales’ entry by arguing that a negative campaign could give Republicans a shot to win a seat they’re not seriously targeting right now, with a spokesperson telling Paul, “Republicans know their only hope of flipping Colorado hinges on dividing us.”
House
CO-08
State Rep. Shannon Bird, one of several Democrats hoping to oust Republican Rep. Gabe Evans in Colorado’s swingy 8th District, announced that she’ll resign from the legislature on Jan. 5 to focus on her campaign. Bird’s replacement in the state House will be chosen by local Democratic leaders.
Also seeking the Democratic nod are Marine veteran Evan Munsing, state Treasurer Dave Young, and state Rep. Manny Rutinel.
KY-06
Republican state Rep. Deanna Gordon dropped her bid on Monday for Kentucky’s open 6th Congressional District, a conservative constituency based around Lexington that Democrats are nonetheless hoping to flip.
Several other candidates are still seeking the GOP nomination, including former state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, state Rep. Ryan Dotson, and retired pharmaceutical executive Greg Plucinski. Democrats also have a busy primary that features former state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson, former Lexington Councilmember David Kloiber, businesswoman Erin Petrey, and former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo.
NJ-12
Former Biden administration official Jay Vaingankar has joined the race for New Jersey’s safely blue 12th Congressional District, making him the sixth notable Democrat vying to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman.
Vaingankar, 27, served as a policy advisor in the Department of Energy during Joe Biden’s presidency. The New Jersey Globe notes that Vaingankar, the son of Indian immigrants, would be the state’s first member of Congress to trace his roots to South Asia.
Virginia
Democratic Del. Sam Rasoul on Monday announced the creation of what he characterized as an “exploratory committee,” with Rasoul noting that his move comes as “our community faces potential regional redistricting in Virginia’s 5th, 6th, and 9th Congressional Districts as a consequence of Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on our democracy.”
Rasoul, whose victory in a 2014 special election in Roanoke made him the first Palestinian American to serve in the legislature, currently resides in the 6th Congressional District, a dark-red constituency held by GOP Rep. Ben Cline. This constituency and other neighboring districts, though, could look very different if Democrats succeed in redrawing the map in time for the fall elections.
Secretaries of State
MI-SoS
Democrat Suzanna Shkreli, who just stepped down from her role as commissioner of the Michigan Lottery, announced on Monday that she was joining the busy race to succeed Democrat Jocelyn Benson as secretary of state.
Shkreli, a former prosecutor in Macomb County, ran for office once before, losing to Republican Rep. Mike Bishop by a wide 56-39 margin in the 8th District in 2016. Just two years later, though, Bishop was ousted by Democrat Elissa Slotkin; Bishop hasn’t ruled out a comeback bid in the open 10th District next year but sounds unenthused.
Three other prominent Democrats are also running for secretary of state, though the nomination won’t be decided in Michigan’s August primary. Instead, it’s set to be resolved on April 19 when the party holds what’s known as an endorsement convention. Republicans will host a similar event on March 28.
Legislatures
VA State Senate
Del. Mike Jones defeated fellow Del. Debra Gardner 71-29 in a low-turnout firehouse primary on Sunday, earning the Democratic nomination for the Jan. 6 special election to replace Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi in the Virginia Senate.
Jones will be the heavy favorite over Republican John Thomas in the race for the 15th District, which is based in the Richmond area. According to numbers from Dave’s Redistricting App and the Redistricting Data Hub, Kamala Harris carried the district 64-35 last year.
Once Hashmi steps down to assume her new role, Democrats’ margin in the Senate will shrink to just 20-19. However, the speedy special election—a hallmark of Virginia politics—will allow Democrats to start at full strength when the legislature convenes on Jan. 14, assuming Jones prevails.
Following an electoral landslide last month, Democrats will enjoy a far bigger edge in the state House when lawmakers meet again. After picking up 13 seats, their advantage will stand at 64-36. And with Democrat Abigail Spanberger flipping the governorship, Virginia Democrats will have their first trifecta since 2021.
Poll Pile
TX-Sen (R): J.L. Partners: Ken Paxton: 29, John Cornyn (inc): 24, Wesley Hunt: 24. Head-to-heads: Paxton: 45, Cornyn: 31. Hunt: 43, Cornyn: 32. Hunt: 37, Paxton: 35.
AZ-05 (R): Victory Insights (R) for Mark Lamb: Mark Lamb: 64, Jay Feely: 3, Daniel Keenan: 2, Travis Grantham: 1; Lamb: 69, Keenan: 6.
VA-05: Former Rep. Tom Perriello (D) running, presumably with the expectation the seat gets redrawn to be much bluer. Perriello represented the district for a term in the late 2000s and ran a competitive primary against Ralph Northam for governor in 2017.
https://x.com/greggiroux/status/1998370184483176693
Blue Tea Party comparisons continue, re: Crockett. I would like to think our primary voters are more tactical than the GOP’s have been for the past decade, but Texas will be an important early test.