If you listen closely, you can already hear it. That low, metallic clank coming from somewhere beneath the marble floors of Capitol Hill. That is the sound of John Cornyn’s confidence dropping into the storm drain as Texans begin whispering an idea so dangerous, so electrifying, so beautifully unhinged that it deserves its own early voting line. Jasmine Crockett for Senate. Yes, Senate. The chamber where ambition goes to nap and geriatric men go to cosplay as constitutional scholars. The chamber that has not seen a jolt of kinetic energy since someone smuggled a fidget spinner onto the floor in 2018. Jasmine could change that in one afternoon and still get to her district meet and greet before sunset.
To understand why she should run, you first have to understand where she came from. Crockett did not wake up one day, wander into Congress, and start handing out rhetorical smoke sessions for free. She came into politics the way real public servants do: by showing up when the sirens blare and the lawyers scatter. Before she ever graced a House hearing clip that went viral with the speed of a Beyoncé surprise drop, Crockett was a civil rights attorney in Texas. Not the soft kind of civil rights attorney who poses with a sepia toned briefcase on a website banner. The kind who actually represented protestors, fought for wrongfully arrested residents, defended people who had no political currency at all, and did it in a state whose legal system occasionally feels like it was designed by a committee made up of skeptics, oil lobbyists, and men who refer to women as young ladies well into their sixties.
Crockett did not inherit a dynasty. She built a practice that stood between vulnerable Texans and the machinery that ground them down. She showed up after police shootings. She represented activists after the George Floyd uprisings when cities criminalized grief in real time. She ran for the Texas House because the problems she was litigating were not accidents. They were design choices. In Austin, she fought for voting rights, police accountability, and equitable funding, and she did it while navigating a Legislature that keeps trying to outdo Florida in a competition no one sane wants to win. That is a résumé that reads less like a staircase to higher office and more like a dossier you submit to Marvel when you are auditioning to become the next morally grounded superhero.
By the time she arrived in Congress, Crockett was already seasoned, sharp, and allergic to nonsense. She entered Washington with the same energy she carried into courtrooms back home: assertive, articulate, strategically furious, and unwilling to let people in suits pretend ignorance is a policy stance. In hearings she demonstrates something rare. She thinks in real time. She dismantles bad faith talking points without breaking cadence. She can convert a stack of documents into a narrative a viewer can understand in one pass. This is what actual legislative talent looks like. It is not the slow drawl of someone reading staff notes about a bill they skimmed while boarding a plane. It is precision and preparation wrapped in charisma and anchored in lived experience.
Meanwhile in the other corner, there is John Cornyn, the senator who has mastered the strange art of looking concerned while doing absolutely nothing. Cornyn is the political equivalent of a screensaver. He moves just enough to remind you he is still there, but nothing about him ever changes. He has been in the Senate since MySpace was considered cutting edge. He has had more terms in office than some Texans have had home insurance claims. And at every major inflection point in American politics, Cornyn has been a loyal vote for whatever the Republican leadership wanted, especially if that leadership was obscenely wealthy, aggressively uninterested in working families, or deeply committed to pretending climate change is an urban legend like Bigfoot or bipartisan compromise.
Imagine putting Jasmine Crockett on a debate stage across from that. Imagine the contrast. One candidate who made her name fighting for marginalized communities, and another who has spent twenty years fighting to keep the government exactly as dull, inequitable, and unresponsive as possible. Texas has not seen a matchup this mismatched since Beyoncé opened for Destiny’s Child in the late nineties. The asymmetry of passion alone would be enough to tilt the Earth’s axis.
But this is not merely about spectacle. It is about positioning Texas for the future it keeps pretending it does not want. Texas is the state of booming metros, demographic dynamism, and the kind of cultural renaissance that would terrify Cornyn if he ever stepped inside the Austin city limits. Texas is Black and brown. It is queer and creative. It is anchored by universities, tech corridors, and medical hubs. It is filled with people who know the grid should not collapse every time someone runs a hair dryer. It is a state begging for actual representation instead of the political taxidermy that passes for leadership in the Senate right now.
Crockett is not just good for Democrats. She is good for Texas. She understands rural voters because she grew up around them. She champions urban voters because she works among them. She speaks about justice with fluency instead of performing it with consultant tested slogans. She shows up for immigrant families and for working class Texans who do not have time to watch CSPAN because they are juggling two jobs and hoping their car does not break down before payday. She knows the harm that comes from underfunded schools, overmilitarized policing, and health care that is either unaffordable or unavailable. She understands the stakes better than most because she saw the damage up close in courtrooms.
There is also the matter of courage. Crockett has already demonstrated that she can withstand the full force of the right wing media machine. She has been the subject of smear campaigns and disinformation cycles and handled all of it with a clarity that makes opponents look unserious. She knows how to take a hit. She knows how to counterpunch. And she knows how to turn a moment into a message without reducing it to gimmickry. That is the kind of durability you need to run statewide in Texas where political messaging is often a contact sport disguised as a campaign.
Texas Democrats have been waiting for a candidate who can run statewide with authenticity. Someone who can galvanize the base without alienating the middle. Someone who does not feel manufactured in a DC workshop but forged in Texas fire. Crockett fits that profile with cinematic precision. She is comfortable on the mic. She is compelling on camera. She connects with young voters. She inspires older voters who want to see courage in action. And she terrifies the political establishment because she cannot be controlled by the usual donor class choreography.
Cornyn, on the other hand, inspires no one. His political imagination begins and ends with whatever his caucus is doing. He is a man who sees a historic heat wave and responds by tweeting a photo of a cowboy hat. He sees schools crying for resources and responds by approving judges who think unions are a nuisance. He sees mass shootings and responds by offering tepid condolences and legislative texts designed to keep gun manufacturers smiling. His governing philosophy is an elaborate shrug.
It is time for Texas to send someone to the Senate who actually understands the state. Someone who has walked its streets, fought its cases, and worked alongside the communities that give Texas its soul. Someone who represents the Texas that is growing instead of the Texas that is fading.
Jasmine Crockett is that person.
She is bold enough to run. Smart enough to win. And prepared enough to govern.
In a state that keeps telling the world it is too big for small politics, it is time to prove it.
Crockett for Senate. Texas deserves nothing less.