Quiet GOP 'Astroturf' campaign convinced liberal firebrand to run for US Senate, source says

It appears some behind-the-scenes tinkering by the Senate Republican campaign arm helped spur progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett to declare her candidacy this week in Texas' high-stakes Senate race.

The campaign launch by Crockett, a two-term lawmaker who represents a Dallas-area district and who is known as a vocal critic and foil of President Donald Trump, quickly shifted the political spotlight off of the Republican nomination race, where incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn is involved in a divisive primary with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt.

The GOP boosting of a preferred primary opponent comes in a race with extremely high stakes, as it's one of a handful across the country that will likely determine if Republicans hold their Senate majority in next year's midterm elections.

As the race in Texas was heating up this past summer, Crockett, a rising Democratic Party star who enjoys a large social media footprint, was not among the list of Democrats widely considered as contenders for the party's nomination.

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But Republican strategists viewed Crockett as a more beatable opponent in the 2026 general election than either former Rep. Colin Allred, who until Monday was making his second straight Senate bid, state Rep. James Talarico, another rising party star who launched his campaign in September, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Joaquin Castro, who at the time were mulling bids.

So the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) released a poll in July that indicated Crockett with a double-digit lead over the rest of the field of actual and potential Democratic Senate contenders.

The poll quickly grabbed plenty of national attention.

A source familiar with the NRSC's process told Fox News Digital that when they saw the results of the survey, they instantly said, "We've got to disseminate this far and wide."

The survey spurred other polls which also indicated Crockett hypothetically in the lead, and the NRSC helped push those results "to really drive that news cycle and that narrative that Jasmine Crockett was surging in Texas."

The NRSC then reached out to allies to aggressively push the polls in the progressive digital world in what the source described as an "AstroTurf recruitment process."

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The effort also included phone calls and text messages to Texas Democrats calling on voters to urge Crockett to enter the race.

The source called it a "sustained effort that we orchestrated across the ecosystem for several months."

Crockett, in announcing her candidacy, noted that "I never put myself into any of the polls."

But she acknowledged that "the more I saw the poll results, I couldn't ignore the trends, which were clear, both as it relates to the primary as well as the general election."

NRSC Chair Sen. Tim Scott, speaking exclusively with Fox News Digital on Monday, said that Crockett's entry into the Senate race is a key sign of the Democrats' shift to the left.

"I think it says something about who the Democrats are nationally, not just in Texas. What it says is that they've been overrun by this radical left agenda that focuses on rhetoric, not reality," the Republican senator from South Carolina claimed.

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Allred, who was making his second straight bid for the Senate after losing last year to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz by 9 points, abandoned his bid hours before Crockett launched her campaign and announced he would run next year to return to the House.

Crockett will now face off in her party's primary with Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian who is also seen as a rising Democrat. The two surging contenders with powerful fundraising operations will face off in the March 3 primary.

In the GOP showdown, Cornyn, the longtime incumbent who hails from the party's establishment wing, has cut into the one-time large lead by Paxton, a MAGA firebrand, with Hunt in third, according to public opinion polling.

The concern among Republicans is that Paxton, who has been battered over the past decade by a slew of scandals and legal problems and who is now dealing with a messy divorce, would put the seat in play if he were to win the GOP nomination.

But Crockett's Senate candidacy may change the political equation. While her aggressive push-back against Trump and the GOP should play well with the left, it could deflate her chances of winning next November among Texas' more conservative electorate.

By dropping out of the race, Allred will likely allow Democrats to avoid a costly and messy primary runoff in the spring, giving the party more time to consolidate around their nominee and raise much-needed campaign cash.

Meanwhile, with Cornyn, Paxton, and Hunt all taking aim at each other in a combustible primary, the GOP nomination appears headed towards a runoff, which would be triggered if no candidate tops 50% in the early March primary.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Scott, and the NRSC are backing Cornyn.

Asked if he's concerned about the GOP nomination battle extending to a primary runoff, Scott predicted that "Cornyn will win the primary and Cornyn will win the general election."