In Texas Senate race, Jasmine Crockett believes she is in the lead over James Talarico in the Democratic primary
In an interview with CBS News Texas, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jasmine Crockett called a recent independent poll showing her trailing fellow Democrat James Talarico by eight percentage points "deeply flawed."
The poll by Emerson College Polling and Nexstar Media said Talarico led 47% to 38%. But Crockett's campaign quickly released an internal poll showing she led by 13 percentage points, 46% to 33%. Crockett said, "I do believe that according to all polls, except for that one, that I am in the lead." But during the interview, Crockett said the only poll that matters will be the primary on Election Day, March 3.
Crockett's internal poll by HIT Strategies also showed her leading Talarico among all demographic groups. She said she believes she is the only candidate who can reassemble the Democratic Party base and expand the electorate during the general election in November. "The state of Texas is a majority-minority state, and so, 61% of the state is people of color. But when we look at who is actually turning out to vote, it is black and brown folk that are not showing up to the polls. Definitely, African Americans overwhelmingly support me. I'm still in the lead with Latinos, and we know that my opponent has been spending a lot of money specifically to try to get Latinos to come over to his side. But considering the fact that we're already there, and so we already have a rapport, then basically once we start spending our money, we will only continue to hopefully build upon that rapport."
The Talarico campaign recently launched a new Spanish-language TV and social media campaign. Earlier this month, the State Representative from Austin told CBS News Texas that electability in November is the key issue during the Democratic primary. "I think it's the central question this primary: who can win in November?" said Talarico. "Every Democratic primary voter who shows up in this primary needs to have one question on their mind, and that is who is best positioned to win in November, because if we don't win, we can't help people."
In response, Crockett agreed and said, "One of the things that we've got to do is we've got to figure out who can excite the base, and I think that is what matters most when we're talking about electability. What we saw in this most recent presidential (race) is that the base stayed home."
Crockett said Democratic primary voters should select her over Talarico because of her experience. "There's only one person in this race that has both state and federal experience, and that's me. But more importantly, it's a federal position and so, I think federal experience should be paramount."
She also referred to one of Pennsylvania's U.S. Senators, Democrat John Fetterman. "There's been a lot of people that have thought that someone was going to be a certain thing on the federal level, and they've been disappointed. Mind you, Mr. Fetterman is one of those types of people. People have been very disappointed with him. I'm not saying that would necessarily be the case with James Talarico. What I'm saying is that people don't know. You know exactly what you're going to get with me."