Crockett Enters Texas Senate Race as Allred Drops Out to Run for House

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) launched her bid for the U.S. Senate on Dec. 8, entering the race to unseat Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). The announcement came the same day that former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, the 2024 Democratic nominee, ended his campaign and said he would run for a U.S. House seat in the recently redrawn 33rd Congressional District.

Crockett announced her campaign at a rally Monday afternoon. A video posted on her X account the same day showed her on screen while audio clips of President Donald Trump played in the background. In the montage, he called her “the new star of the Democrat party” and “a very low IQ person,” before she smiled in the video, which then directed viewers to a donation page.

Crockett has gained national attention in recent years for criticizing Republicans, including Trump, and engaging in verbal spats with fellow members of Congress, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

“For too long, Texas has elected senators who have defended politics as usual and protected the status quo, while Texans pay the price,” Crockett said on her campaign website. “We’ve had senators who’ve pushed the American Dream further and further out of reach.”

She added she is running to “be an independent voice for all 30 million Texans—not a rubber stamp or party line vote for Donald Trump. Texas is ready.”

At the rally Monday, Crockett told supporters that some Democrats had urged her to stay in the House as a strong voice, but that Texas needed her “to have a bigger voice” in the Senate. She said she could have “played it safe” and stayed in Congress, but said that “this moment we’re in now is life or death. It’s all or nothing. It’s now or never.”

Crockett said Democrats have long hoped to flip a Senate seat in Texas, but “no Democrat has done what we’re seeking to do, and that is win a statewide election in Texas in the 21st century.”

“There is no roadmap,” she said. “If there was anyone with the recipe, well, they would have already won.”

Allred said his decision was meant to avoid a divisive Democratic primary as Crockett moved forward with a campaign launch that had been widely expected for days. Texas State Rep. James Talarico—who gained national attention earlier this year amid the Texas Democrats’ quorum break—has also announced he is running for the Senate seat that Crockett has set her sights on.

In a letter dated Dec. 8 and posted to social media, Allred said “nothing has moved me more than the personal stories and trust that so many Texans have placed in me” during his campaign and that he is “forever grateful for that trust.”

Criticizing the Trump administration, he wrote that those conversations left him with “a heavy responsibility” to do what he believes is best for the state and for his party in a high-stakes election year.

“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified,” Allred wrote, criticizing the Trump administration, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

“That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the U.S. Senate.

“Today, I’m announcing my campaign for Congress to represent the newly drawn Congressional District 33.”

The district is “the community where I grew up attending public schools and watching my mom struggle to pay for our groceries,” he said, adding it’s where veterans use the Garland VA hospital he helped create, and where he said he has already secured “over $135 million in federal resources for affordable housing, public transportation and healthcare.”

“It is my home,” Allred wrote, noting that he and his wife, Aly, are now raising their two sons there.

In an interview on Monday with CNN’s Dana Bash after he made his decision, Allred said he had been weighing the decision “for some time” and felt both moved by the support he received and obligated to “do what I think is best for the state and for the party.”

He said that a contested Democratic Senate primary followed by a likely runoff “was not in the best interest of the state or the party” and that he still believes he has “a lot to give” by returning to the House.

Allred confirmed that Crockett’s possible candidacy had factored into his choice. When asked whether her open consideration of a Senate run had been part of his decision, he replied, “Yeah, of course,” while calling Crockett “a friend of mine” whom he has known since before either served in elected office.

He said his concern was that “with, you know, three strong candidates running, we would certainly have a runoff,” which he said won’t serve the Texans who had “opened themselves up” to him on the trail.

Allred further said Democrats must reconnect with working people, warning that the party is “being seen as too elitist and too disconnected.”

Allred did not endorse a candidate in the Senate primary and said he is focused on the 33rd District race, though he reiterated his friendship with Crockett and the need for Democrats to go into November “with a unified party, ready to take on Cornyn, Paxton, Hunt, whichever.”

Allred’s move comes a year after he lost a high-profile race to Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. That 2024 contest was Democrats’ second attempt in recent years to unseat Cruz in a state they have long hoped to make more competitive. Cruz defeated Allred by 8.5 percent, preserving Republicans’ grip on the seat and dealing a blow to Democrats’ hopes of flipping Texas statewide.

The House race Allred is joining will unfold under new congressional lines that were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court this past week. The map, drafted by the Republican-controlled state Legislature and left in place by the high court, is expected to increase Republican representation in the state’s U.S. House delegation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.