How James Talarico Won An Upset in Texas

James Talarico’s campaign prided itself on running a cutting-edge operation that fused social media engagement with a populist economic message and progressive Christianity.

It also ran TV ads, sent volunteers to knock on voters’ doors and instilled message discipline from the candidate on down — all the fundamental parts of a professional campaign that, more than anything else, might explain his upset Tuesday.

Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic Senate primary Tuesday in Texas, advancing after a closely fought contest that exposed the party’s racial and political divisions. The state lawmaker from Austin will face either Republican Sen. John Cornyn or state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the general election, a race many Democrats in Washington now think the party could win because of Talarico’s potential appeal to moderates.

Talarico won despite the fact that, according to his own campaign’s polling, he trailed Crockett by 17 percentage points after the congresswoman in December suddenly and unexpectedly launched her campaign. Crockett entered the race with national fame, thanks largely to her abrasive criticism of Republicans.

But Talarico was able to overcome his opponent’s significant advantage, allies say, thanks to a campaign that ran far more TV ads and did more to engage with voters on the ground. By her aides’ own admission, Crockett ran a radically different kind of campaign than most candidates seeking statewide office, all the way down to not having a formal campaign manager.

“Talarico has been incredibly disciplined on TV, mail, field, rallies, online culture, just like across the board infrastructure,” said Tory Gavito, the president of Way to Win, a group focused on winning Democratic voters in the Sun Belt. “And to go from behind Jasmine by a lot to defeating her is a sign that that discipline matters.”

Talarico supporters say that his ability to attract attention, such as with his widely seen online-only appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in February, helped make his case, too. But spending from his campaign and an alligned super PAC offered a decisive edge in the race’s final two months, in part because Crockett’s own campaign did so little to respond.

Talarico’s campaign spent $17.3 million on TV and digital advertising in the race, according to AdImpact, more than three times the $4.7 million spent by Crockett’s campaign. The disparity between the candidates’ super PACs was even more dramatic: Talarico’s super PAC, Lone Star Rising PAC, spent about $8 million on ads, about 16 times more than the half-million spent by a super PAC backing the congresswoman, Texas Forward.

That discrepancy helped Talarico shrink his double-digit deficit against Crockett to the low single digits by the start of February, one Talarico ally said, which was when he and others began gaining confidence that the state lawmaker was on track to win the primary.

“The traditional communication strategy that has worked in campaigns for a long time worked again,” said the Talarico supporter, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The basic fundamentals of the campaign he ran is why he was able to get across the finish line. And Jasmine’s weird approach to get on TV late and not spend a ton of money was to her detriment.”

The Talarico campaign said last week that his campaign, backed by nearly 30,000 volunteers, was set to hold 130 events in 40 cities during the last four days of the primary.

Democrats in Texas, however, said they had seen little evidence that Crockett was running a similarly robust operation on the ground: One party strategist in the state said they hadn’t received a single piece of mail from the congresswoman’s campaign or had their home visited by a single one of her volunteers. That was a contrast from Talarico, they said, whose campaign had engaged with him multiple times.

Talarico’s campaign was “highly professional but also very modern,” said Adam Jentleson, the head of the Searchlight Institute and a veteran Democratic staffer. “And her campaign was very modern but not very professional.”

Jentleson said he hopes Talarico can continue to run a good campaign in the general election, where he and other Democrats think he has a chance to become the first Democratic candidate to win a statewide race in Texas in more than 30 years.

The longtime operative and other Democratic strategists said that Crockett’s campaign had given them concern that she wouldn’t run the kind of race in a general election necessary to win the deep-red state.

Crockett’s advisers said she was running a nontraditional campaign, one that emphasized in-person campaigning from the congresswoman and sought to leverage her large presence on social media. But her campaign started running TV and digital ads late, almost completely ignoring the airwaves in January. And her campaign has been hindered late by controversies, including the forced removal of an Atlantic reporter from one of the congresswoman’s events.

Now, the hard part for Talarico begins: trying to flip the ruby-red state in a general election.

“He had a good message, he had a good team,” one Democratic strategist put it. “The cycle is gonna be really fucking fun.”