Republicans don’t know how to govern, but they know how to win.
A few days ago, I predicted that Jasmine Crockett would stay in her little pond. I was wrong, but who could have predicted that Collin Allred would step aside so that she would not run for the US Senate? Well, Allred did step aside, and Crockett is running for US Senate.
If the story below is true, we should soon see polls showing whether Crockett or Talarico would have a better chance against whichever Republican wins the primary.
There were polls before the deadline, but it’s unclear how accurate they were because Talarico is largely unknown to voters. At the same time, Crockett has made herself a household name with things like calling Greg Abbott “Hotwheels” and her response to Marjorie Taylor Greene, “bleach blonde, bad built, butch body.”
Crockett was rumored to be entering the race for several weeks, with a University of Houston-Texas Southern University poll on October 9 showing her against current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton 47 percent to 49 percent. Talarico was on 46 to 49.
Against U.S. Representative Wesley Hunt, Crockett was on 45 percent versus his 50 percent in the same poll, while Talarico was on 44 percent. Against Cornyn, the pair were on 44 and 45 percent respectively, against 50 and 48 percent for Cornyn.
Republicans planted polls and buzz to lure Jasmine Crockett into Senate race: report.
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.”
