In a grueling 10-stop campaign swing through San Antonio on Sunday, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) drew out thousands of Democratic Party faithful far from her home base, lifted up a lesser-known candidate for Texas governor and made her case for mounting a statewide campaign some in the party would rather she’d skipped.

Crockett, a 44-year-old civil rights attorney, has been a fast-rising rising star in a Democratic Party that’s eager to see its leaders fighting back in the era of President Donald Trump.

But the power of her personal brand is being put to the test after launching a last-minute U.S. Senate bid on the day of the Dec. 8 filing deadline — a response to Republicans’ mid-cycle redistricting effort that drew her out of her Dallas-area congressional district.

The potential for national money and support for the Senate race drew interest from nearly all of the state’s best-known Democrats at various points this election cycle, including U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio), former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Dallas), and 2018 Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke, who once huddled amongst themselves to divide up the various statewide contests on the ballot in 2026.

Yet it’s Crockett who now leads in public polling for the March 3 Democratic primary with just weeks to go before early voting starts Feb. 17.

Her popularity with the Democratic base was enough to pressure Allred into folding his well-funded Senate bid and run for Congress instead.

That leaves Crockett up against state Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock), a popular former teacher with a big social media following who launched his campaign in September, and a perennial candidate from the Houston area, Ahmad Hassan, whose string of unsuccessful campaigns includes a recent U.S. Senate bid in Minnesota.

The congresswoman’s campaign bus makes a stop at New Creation Christian Fellowship on her swing through San Antonio while campaigning for U.S. Senate on Sunday. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio Report

On Sunday, Crockett’s nascent campaign rolled into San Antonio for one of its first big events since launching her statewide bid in Dallas on Dec. 8.

For a candidate wagering that Democrats’ best shot at flipping Texas involves giving its voters inspiring candidates rather than winning over the political middle, she drew scores of fans posing for pictures with her tour bus and waiting in lines out the door to see her.

“I know people have sold us so many times, we gonna turn blue, we gonna turn blue, we gonna turn blue, and then we see Election Day, and it’s not blue,” Crockett told the roughly 200 supporters packed into Tony G’s Soul Food restaurant on the East Side.

“But I believe we are [on the cusp]. We are voter-suppressed, and we’ve not been excited,” she continued. “It is my goal that you stay excited and engaged in this election, and I’m gonna do my part.”

An outsider’s approach

In non-presidential election years like 2026, members of Congress and the Texas House are all up for reelection — election cycles that are often referendums on the party controlling the White House and cause its members to lose seats.

Given such conditions, Texas Democrats who haven’t won a statewide race in more than three decades have competitive primaries underway for nearly every statewide position on the ballot this March — from the governor’s race on down.

While many of the party’s top strategists believe still believe their future involves winning over some Republicans, Crockett’s unabashedly progressive brand has never been more embraced by fellow Democratic candidates.

The Missouri native got her start in the Texas House just six years ago after opening her own legal practice in Dallas, where her clients includedBlack Lives Matter protesters. She won an uphill Democratic primary runoff by just 90 votes that year, and by her own telling, came into the role with little political experience.

“That first term, man I was green,” she told the gathering at Tony G’s. “I really thought that the only reason that we had jacked-up laws was because the people that were writing them didn’t know what they were doing. So I thought I could roll in and be like, ‘Listen, I’ve been in these courtrooms, and this doesn’t work.’”

While that approach didn’t win her many friends in the conservative-dominated Texas House, it did earn Crockett the respect of longtime U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas), who cited her “high energy,” “passion to fight” and “shrewd intelligence” when endorsing her as a successor in 2022— passing over a favorite of the party establishment who had been patiently waiting in the wings.

Crockett would go on to take Congress by storm, leveraging positions on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees to become a regular foil of GOP leaders on national TV. At times, that’s involved delving into the personal attacks that have become more common in the era of Trump.

“I had no idea that there would be a woman serving out of the state of Georgia that would have the audacity to talk about my lashes,” Crockett recalled of her viral feuds with conservative firebrand U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).

Asked at another event how she planned to bring others along with her ideas in a Republican-controlled Senate, Crockett quipped, “most people don’t know me for my agreements, I’m better known for my disagreements.”

Texas Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins introduces gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa during Jasmine Crockett’s campaign stop. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio Report

By Sunday, however, fellow Democrats were hardly shying away from Crockett’s sharp-elbowed brand of politics.

Two former colleagues from the Texas Legislature appeared beside her at Tony G’s, state Reps. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) and Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio), who each face their own Democratic primaries this year. Hinojosa is seeking her party’s nomination for governor, while Gervin-Hawkins is trying to fend off two young Democratic challengers.

Asked by the San Antonio Report why Democrats had worked to dissuade Crockett from entering this race, Gervin-Hawkins, who stopped short of making an endorsement in the Senate race, blamed outdated institutional wisdom.

“I think the bottom line is obvious, people believe that a Black woman cannot win statewide, or maybe even a woman in general,” Gervin-Hawkins said. “I think she does have some challenges, but I also believe she’s got enough fight in her to overcome them.”

An abbreviated race

In total, Crockett’s whirlwind tour included stops at six San Antonio-area churches, a gathering with supporters at Tony G’s, a “community conversation” at New Creation Christian Fellowship in Windcrest and a final rally at Southtown’s Taco Haven. When that event ended after 9 p.m., her campaign said she was she headed out to visit a fire station that same night, all before hitting a prayer breakfast with Gervin-Hawkins Monday morning and flying out of San Antonio International Airport to get back to D.C.

“I had the best reelection numbers of any sitting member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, when I just got reelected to the U.S. House,” Crockett told roughly 200 supporters packed into the Eastside restaurant on Sunday afternoon. “… I’m definitely not worried about my district. That’s why I’m in San Antonio right now.”

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett makes an appearance at Tony G’s, a soul food restaurant, while campaigning for senator on January 11. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio Report

So hectic was the schedule that her campaign briefly closed off a glass room at Tony G’s so that she could shovel in a quick lunch before speaking to another crowd. In an interview between events, Crockett acknowledged the challenge of a quick-turnaround campaign — all while Congress is largely in session.

The House just concluded a long fight over extending health care subsidies, something Democrats viewed as critical for their constituents, and lawmakers are now turning to the next looming funding deadline.

“I think that it’s so important that I’m in D.C. right now, especially as we are heading most likely to another government shutdown,” she told the San Antonio Report. “I can’t say ‘Hey, I want you to trust me to do another job on the federal level’ if I fail to show up in one that I’ve already been hired to do.”

Attendees pray at New Creation Christian Fellowship on January 11. Credit: Vincent Reyna for the San Antonio Report

At the heart of the abbreviated race, however, is a situation that Republicans helped to manufacture.

Facing their own bruising U.S. Senate primary — and an otherwise tough midterm election overall — the GOP’s mid-cycle redistricting effort not only made some blue congressional seats more red, but also moved boundaries so that several Democratic incumbents, including Crockett, were no longer in their safe blue seats.

Crockett testified on the matter, saying she was left with a choice of moving or asking voters to support someone who doesn’t live there. Instead, she polled the U.S. Senate race and another door opened.

“Some people say, ‘Well Congresswoman, you should just stay in the House, because we need your voice. We need to make sure you’re going to be there because Texas likes to do Texas things, we can’t afford to lose you in this moment,’” Crockett told the crowd at Tony G’s. “But I never signed up for public office to be anybody’s safety blanket. I signed up because I wanted to make change.”

The Supreme Court confirmed the new districts just days before the Dec. 8 filing deadline, and Crockett, whose Dallas home would be far from her 30th Congressional District’s new boundaries, launched her U.S. Senate campaign with just hours to spare.

“Lord knows I was hoping that my numbers would tell me to get behind somebody else [in the Democratic Senate primary],” she told the roughly 1,000 supporters packed in to see her in Windcrest on Sunday evening. “My numbers didn’t tell me that. So here it is, I’m running.”