Last week’s Supreme Court ruling on the redistricting map in Texas just paid its first dividend.
A few weeks back, Jasmine Crockett told a radio host that if the map the state legislature and went into effect, she would essentially get forced out of the House. If that happened, Crockett warned, she would instead seek the Democrat nomination for US Senate in 2026 for the seat currently held by John Cornyn. “If you want to take my seat of 766,000 away, I feel like there has to be some karma in that to where I take your seat that is for 30 million away,” Crockett told radio host Lurie Daniel Favors.
And that was no empty threat, either. A University of Houston poll at that time showed Crockett narrowly leading a primary field, six points ahead of Robert Francis O’Rourke and state legislator James Talarico, with Collin Alred well behind at 13% despite his challenge last year to Ted Cruz in the Senate race.
An earlier court ruling put all of this on pause, as a federal judge set aside the new map. However, the stay from the Supreme Court on Thursday all but guaranteed that Texas will use the new maps next year, and now the dominos are falling. Allred told the Dallas Morning News that he has decided to withdraw from the Senate primary … and what he will do instead is delicious:
Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred is ending his Senate campaign and will instead run for Congress in Dallas County’s revamped District 33.
Allred’s decision comes as U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, is expected to join the Democratic Senate contest that also includes state Rep. James Talarico of Austin.
“I felt that having a long, drawn out, brutal primary and runoff was not in the people’s interest or the interest of the folks who placed their trust in me,” Allred told The Dallas Morning News in an exclusive interview. “I’ve made the decision to end my Senate campaign, but I’ve decided to run for the newly drawn 33rd Congressional District.”
We’ll get back to the implications for the new TX-33 in a moment. Why did Allred make this decision now? As it turns out, Crockett is expected to make good on her threat late this afternoon:
Allred’s decision comes on a day Crockett has set a 4:30 p.m. announcement where she expected to announce her campaign for the Senate seat held by Republican John Cornyn. Allred had been campaigning for that seat since July 1. Talarico joined the contest in September.
Allred wants to tee up his support to clear the field for Crockett, clearly. Their two constituencies are similar, both in location and demographics, and both represent the hard-Left faction of the Democrats. In fairness, so do Talarico and O’Rourke, but Beto is a spent force in Texas politics and has yet to commit to running again. Allred’s withdrawal makes that move less likely. As for Talarico, the left-wing seminarian has led a poll or two of late, but now has to explain why he follows porn stars and OnlyFans models on Instagram, as Axios reported exactly a month ago:
James Talarico, a Texas Democrat running for U.S. Senate who has put his faith at the forefront of his campaign, follows several adult film performers, escorts and OnlyFans models on Instagram, according to an Axios review. …
- Earlier this year, he “liked” separate photos of an Austin-based Instagram account holder who also has an OnlyFans account and a page on EscortBook.com — a site that claims to be the “#1 content management system in the escort industry!”
- Those photos did not include nudes, which are largely banned on Instagram.
- Talarico also follows Instagram accounts of adult film actors such as @honky_tonkangel, who has nearly 250,000 followers and goes by the name Giselle Palmer.
- Some accounts with matching usernames of the Instagram accounts he follows appear on sites such as datingpornstar.com and escortstate.com, while several have adult content on OnlyFans. All of those accounts include provocative pictures and some link to their other sites with explicit content, but don’t identify their holders as adult film performers.
I suspect that “according to an Axios review” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this instance. This looks like some basic oppo-research work by a prospective competitor in a tough primary fight. Allred was the only one who had officially indicated interest in the nomination at that point (other than Talarico), but Crockett’s quasi-announcement took place two weeks before the Axios story dropped.
Allred’s not the only one looking to clear a field, in other words. He is, however, not averse to a primary fight, which brings us back to the shiny new TX-33. The redrawn map will force Allred to target a Democrat incumbent to claw his way back into the House … and Allred chose his replacement:
Allred’s move creates a primary clash with the woman who replaced him in Congress–U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch. Johnson is in her first term representing District 32, which the Republican-controlled Legislature redrew this summer to be more favorable to a GOP candidate. …
District 33, which is represented by Fort Worth Democrat Marc Veasey, sheds all of Tarrant County under the redistricting and now includes neighborhoods Allred once represented. Veasey is expected to run for District 30, which Crockett represents.
This is a similar situation to the fight in New York, where redrawn maps forced Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney to tear into each other in a primary fight. Neither Allred nor Johnson have the kind of seniority of that New York fight, but we can expect it to get ugly as Democrats play musical chairs with five fewer seats and outsiders muscle their way onto the dance floor.
Stay tuned for the Crockett presser this afternoon. Crockett may have all but cleared the path already to the nomination, which will likely be the high-water mark of her career. Allred couldn’t sell himself as centrist enough to seriously threaten Cruz last year, losing 53.1/44.6 despite Democrats dropping tens of millions on the race. Crockett’s a much easier and far more radical target, which should provide a lovely extinction burst over the next eleven months.
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