Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) shook up the Senate race in Texas by throwing her hat in the ring this week — but according to NOTUS, this may have all been by Republicans' own design.
"Just a month ago, there was grave concern among Republicans about the Senate race, where incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is running for reelection," reported Reese Gorman. "Democrats were running two formidable candidates, and Cornyn was caught in the middle of a bruising three-way primary that Republicans were concerned would weaken the eventual nominee."
Then, strategists at the National Republican Senate Committee adopted an unusual tactic: putting out polls that tested Crockett alongside declared candidates Colin Allred and James Talarico, and showing her leading them. They did this until nonpartisan pollsters began testing her as well, and began planting interest in progressive circles for her to run, trying to tempt her into joining.
Crockett, an outspoken critic of Trump who has grabbed headlines for her speeches in Congress, is popular among much of the Democratic base — but polling has shown she has the worst general-election favorables of any major candidate in consideration.
"The NRSC then worked to amplify those polls and is taking credit for helping 'orchestrate the pile on of these polling numbers to really drive that news cycle and that narrative that Jasmine Crockett was surging in Texas,'" one source told NOTUS. Meanwhile, "In what the source dubbed an 'AstroTurf recruitment process,' the NRSC had 'allies that were seeding these new polls pretty aggressively into progressive digital spaces.' There were several recruitment phone calls and text messages that went out to Democrats and high-propensity voters across the state that would urge voters to contact and advocate for Crockett to join the race, the source said."
Ultimately, the strategy seems to have worked, as Crockett said in her announcement speech, “The more I saw the poll results, I couldn’t ignore the trends that were clear.”
With her entry into the race, Allred, who was the Democrats' Senate nominee in 2024, exited the race, setting up a two-way contest between herself and Talarico, a Christian preacher and state representative from the Austin area.