Is Rep. Jasmine Crockett even trying to win her Senate race? That's the question I think many Democrats are quietly asking themselves as the Texas congresswoman runs what can only be described as one of the most bizarre, chaotic campaigns in recent memory.
With just three weeks until the March 3 Democratic primary, Crockett finds herself in a tight battle with state Rep. James Talarico—and she's doing it without a campaign manager, without broadcast TV ads, and with a spending disadvantage that no one probably expected. Talarico has dropped nearly $4.9 million on ads this year compared to Crockett's measly $260,000, a spending gap of almost 19 to 1. Even more embarrassing, not a single dollar of Crockett's ad money has gone toward traditional broadcast advertising, the bread and butter of statewide campaigns in a massive state like Texas.
Crockett jumped into the race just two and a half months before the primary, a last-ditch effort to save her political career after her district was wiped out by redistricting. She was widely presumed to be the de facto frontrunner, and her entry into the race even pushed former Rep. Colin Allred out of the race.
But Crockett's entrance hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. The post-announcement fundraising surge everyone expected never happened—she pulled in only about $2 million from her December 8 launch through year's end, a fraction of what a candidate with her national profile should have raised. Talarico's campaign, meanwhile, has raked in over $13 million.
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"I don't think she's a particularly strong candidate. I don't think she's putting together a particularly strong effort. And I don't think they're particularly interested in taking any advice on how to make things better," one Democratic strategist tracking the race told NOTUS. Another Democrat described the race as a "political science experiment" testing whether campaigns even matter anymore in a Democratic primary, given how stark the contrast is between Crockett's unconventional approach and Talarico's traditional operation.
Perhaps nothing frustrates Democrats more than the mystery surrounding who's actually running Crockett's campaign. No campaign manager has been announced.
Instead of following the traditional playbook, Crockett's campaign insists she's focusing on in-person events and local organizing. "We reject the DC playbook of politics as usual, because this moment—and winning—demands something different," said Karrol Rimal, Crockett's deputy campaign manager. I guess no one in the campaign realizes how big a state Texas is. According to the report, her campaign boasts that she’s making more than a dozen weekend stops before returning to Washington for the week.
It’s a big state, Jasmine… a really big state.
There’s little reason to be confident in Jasmine’s campaign at this point. Between the primary coming up in a few weeks and early voting starting next week, time is running out for Crockett to make her case to voters across Texas.
Her campaign signaled over the weekend that it wants outside groups to start spending on her behalf, posting a so-called "red box" on its website with instructions for allied super PACs. Isn’t that nice of her?
Why is she running such a shoddy campaign? She reportedly has over $6 million in the bank and is spending so little that it seems as though she’s not even trying. It doesn’t even look like she’s hired a campaign manager. I think all these points indicate that she doesn’t intend to win. She knows she wouldn’t win a general election, and she’s not even trying in the primary. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has strict rules on how her leftover campaign funds can be used, including creating a PAC from which she can pay herself a salary and raise money for other Democrats.
