Chapter 1: What are the Texas Senate primaries and why are they significant?
The Texas Senate primaries are drawing national headlines. You may have heard of the Democratic candidates. Representative Jasmine Crockett, who spat with Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2024, lit up social media.
If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleached, blind, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?
A what now? Or James Talrico, who was recently interviewed by Stephen Colbert. And interview Colbert said CBS tried to bar him from airing. I think that Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas. Both candidates would have a big hill to climb. No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994.
Chapter 2: Who are the main Democratic candidates in the Texas primary?
And promising candidates from Beto O'Rourke to Wendy Davis have tried and failed to change that fact. But people think Crockett or Talrico really could. And it's making them wonder. Is this the year for a Democrat in Texas? This is Radio Atlantic, and I'm Adam Harris, sitting in for Hannah Rosen.
Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey has been covering this Texas race, and also following Representative Crockett. She profiled her last year. And then, while Elaine was at a Crockett campaign event this week, this happened.
We'll get into that soon.
Elaine, welcome to the show.
Adam, thank you for having me.
So the Texas Senate primary. Why has this race captured the national media attention? What's going on in the Texas primary?
I think what's made the Texas primary on the Democrat side so exciting is that both of the candidates are really popular. Voters are excited about them both genuinely. And also the dynamic here is you have two fighters and Democrats have been saying they want fighters against Trump. And. Each of these candidates does so in a different way. So you have Jasmine Crockett, one of the Democrats.
She's a she's a congresswoman, two term congresswoman who is much sharper in her criticism of Trump, much more willing to throw insults, much more bombastic. She's on on cable news all the time. She's in hearings, you know, blasting Trump and and and. aggressively sort of questioning witnesses. And Democrats love this. They love to see, you know, a capital F fighter.
You also have James Tallarico, who is running against her, who is a state lawmaker in Texas. They used to be colleagues in the state legislature. He's also a preacher in training. And he's a little quieter than His approach is a lot more peace and love. We need to heal as a country. He talks a lot more about let's join hands with our Republican friends.
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Chapter 3: What makes Jasmine Crockett a standout candidate?
The vibes are really good. You know, I come in, I show my badge. They put me in the press section. I watched the whole rally. I was taking notes the whole time. It was it was the kind of rally that I think if you're a candidate, you want a reporter to be at. Right. Because she looked great. She came off great. People loved it. Afterwards, they had a press availability for her.
And there were only a few press there, most local. And I went over to join. And her press person, after I identified myself, her press person, one of her press people said, it's already full. You can't go in there. I said, OK. So I went back to keep interviewing people who were lingering in the in the building. And then a different person came up to me and said, her team wants you to leave.
And I said, why? And she said, because she said she read from her phone and she said. They're looking for Elaine from the Atlantic, a white girl in a baseball cap with a notepad. She's a top notch hater and she will spin. She needs to leave. I don't think they were supposed to have read that message to me, but they did.
And then immediately security guards surrounded me and escorted me out of the building through the parking lot to the edge of the county road where I had to get an Uber.
And you recorded this whole interaction. And it's a good thing that you did record it because after you published the article, the campaign denied it. They said that you, they didn't actually say that.
Yeah. First, a spokesperson for Crockett said that didn't happen. Then a CBS reporter was interviewing Crockett and asked about it. And Crockett said there's no evidence that a reporter was was ejected from my event. She also said the specific reporter in question has a reputation for not being truthful and has been sued for defamation successfully.
She didn't say my name at any point, but it was pretty clear she was talking about me. I have since reached out to her and to her campaign multiple times to say, you know, could you clarify what you meant? And I haven't heard anything back.
And for the record, have you been sued for defamation successfully?
I have not.
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Chapter 4: How does James Tallarico differentiate himself in the race?
So we published it. You can read it at the Atlantic dot com. I think it's pretty fair and good. I think she gave me tons of access for that story. She she talked to me a lot for it. I think it's pretty fair. And I think that was pretty surprising that she tried to shut it down. And even more surprising that now, you know, she's appears to be holding that against me to this day.
So you mentioned, right, that she's sort of no shrinking violet, right? Like, this is a part of who she is as a politician, right? It's a fighter, capital F fighter. You put it in your piece, you said she doesn't wilt before the president, like, cut hydrangeas. So is this, right, indicative of... maybe a broader trend in the party, right?
We had the classic Michelle Obama, when they go low, we go high. Is this a way of sort of signaling that there's an end to that?
I think for some candidates, yeah. I think that there is an appetite among Democrats. I mean, Republicans have already blown past that benchmark, right? Like, there is an appetite now for Democrats to do the same. And I don't know if it means we'll see more reporters getting thrown out of rallies, but specifically when it comes to
Not swearing, insulting people, not being willing to correct the record if you make a mistake or if you, you know, accuse someone of defamation when they are of having been accused of defamation. Like, I think there is just a real increase in tolerance on the left now for that because they're saying, well, look at the guy in the White House. He does that all the time. Why can't we?
More importantly, why shouldn't we if we if we want to win? We might have to play dirty. So I do think there's going to be – I think the midterms are probably going to have a lot more of that than we've seen before.
Yeah. So, of course, you were in Lubbock, so you're in West Texas. You don't just stay in West Texas and then leave, right? You continue on, continue to cover this race. So you go out to Tyler. And there's a part in your story where you say you're asking folks – Why James Tallarico at the Crockett rally? Similarly, why Jasmine Crockett?
And they seem to have an interest in the other candidate, but it was just about that style. Can you just talk to me a little bit about that? What is that actually saying? They're both interested in the policies and the people, but the style is really kind of what's different.
Yeah. I was surprised given how you know, controversial or ugly the primary has seemed online and from the outside, that when I got there, people who like Jasmine Crockett still told me, but I like that James Tallarico too, he seems nice. I'm not going to vote for him, but he seems nice. And if if he was in a general, I'd vote for him. People were not so much interested in their policies.
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Chapter 5: Why is there excitement around the Texas primary this year?
If Paxton is the nominee right now, polls show he's probably going to beat Cornyn. He's probably going to be the Republican nominee for the race. And here's why Democrats love to hear this, because. Paxton brings a ton of baggage. He was impeached and acquitted over allegations of bribery and corruption. He was accused by his wife of having an affair.
He has this long laundry list of scandals that Republicans are worried is going to make him just a toxic candidate and Democrats are really excited will make him so weak that a Democrat could finally win in Texas. And I think part of what makes Tallarico particularly exciting for a lot of Democrats is they think he has the best chance to beat Paxton if it comes down to a head to head.
I think Crockett probably would have a good chance to, although her unfavorables are very high.
compared to tallarico's so that's that is something i'll be watching too that's something we'll all be watching is what happens on the republican side because that's really going to determine um you know what the chances are for a democrat to to win statewide in texas for the first time in like 30 years yeah so they're thinking it could be like a doug jones um roy moore kind of situation exactly yep we'll be watching elaine thank you so much thank you for having me
Thank you for listening.
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