The Texas U.S. Senate primaries have become the most fascinating election in America. On the Democratic side, the contest between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico was viewed as a showdown between two younger Democrats with incredibly bright futures.
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Crockett is running for the Democratic Senate nomination because her House district was gerrymandered out of existence by Republicans, but the two candidates are running vastly different-styled campaigns.
Rep. Crockett got into the race late, so she has less of a campaign operation and is relying on her national high profile with Democrats to get her over the top in the primary.
Talarico was less famous than Crockett, but he had built a very traditional campaign operation in Texas, and so the question for political scientists was whether fame would defeat traditional campaigning.
This question got turned on its head when the Trump administration, through FCC Chair Brandon Carr, decided to get CBS to pull a Stephen Colbert interview with Talarico.
If the point was to stop Talarico, the decision was a disaster.
The interview has been exponentially more viewed online than Colbert’s show on television.
The high viewership has turned Talarico into an instant national star that both the Crockett campaign and Republicans are trying to neutralize.
The numbers for Talarico are eye-popping.
Read more below.