A $25 million Black voter outreach initiative. An interview on “The Breakfast Club.” Hosting a fundraiser at Texas Southern University, an HBCU in Houston.
Texas state Rep. James Talarico is attempting to gain ground with Texas’ 2.7 million Black voters, who are strongholds in cities like Houston and Dallas, as he seeks to become the first Democrat elected statewide in Texas in more than three decades.
But some strategists and local lawmakers think Talarico is falling short — criticism that has plagued him since the primary — and that an enthusiasm gap from Black voters could make the difference on whether he is able to beat state Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate, next week.
“What I’m seeing with what is spent doesn’t look or feel anything like $25 million at all. … He really does need to give more, he really does,” said Democratic state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who serves in a predominantly Black district in Houston and endorsed Talarico.
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Polling has found Talarico leading Paxton among Black voters — but some Democrats are worried that not enough enthusiasm from Black voters will eat into any overall margin Talarico might have.
“The question is not whether Talarico gets the majority of the Black vote because Talarico is going to get the majority of Black votes,” Jones said. “The question is how many Black people are going to show up to vote.”
How enthusiastic Black voters are for Talarico won’t be clear until after Election Day.
But some surrogates are already criticizing the state representative’s investment in shoring up his support among Black voters as too late.
“Where he deserves credit is that he did with Latino voters what we’ve been asking the Democratic Party to do with Black voters. He went in early, Day 1. He started engaging Latino voters. He built in infrastructure within his campaign run by Latinos to develop strategy to engage Latinos,” Ashley Etienne, a former Democratic White House and congressional aide, told The Washington Sun.
But Etienne thinks that the campaign should be trying harder to make similar gains among Black Texans.
Traci Gibson, the first Black chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, said she has been visiting barber shops across the county to talk to Black men, most of whom she said did not recognize Talarico’s name.
“I think he’s done a few things, maybe once a month in Harris County,” Gibson said. “I would think that the largest county in Texas would get more touch points with Black voters, so I think there is room for additional pushes.”
In a statement, the Talarico campaign highlighted his Black voter outreach efforts.
“Texas deserves a senator that will fight for Black Texans,” said JT Ennis, a spokesperson for the Talarico campaign. “It’s why James stands up to racist redistricting maps, champions HBCU funding, and supports programs that invest in Black owned businesses, increase access to capital, and provide home ownership grants to Black communities.”
In response to Jones specifically, the Talarico campaign pointed The Sun to an interview she gave local media earlier this month, in which she reiterated her endorsement for Talarico and said she was pleased with his announced investment. The Sun’s interview with her took place several days later.
Perhaps the clearest sign that Talarico may be falling short with Black voters is the lack of a public campaign presence from U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a popular Black Democrat who lost the Senate primary to Talarico. Black voters overwhelmingly backed her in that contest, and she has since endorsed him.
But she has been noticeably absent from his events, which has led to criticism from some observers who believe she should join him in key neighborhoods on the trail.
CNN anchor Laura Coates pressed Crockett on her show in August about why she wouldn’t campaign with Talarico — Crockett dodged the question repeatedly.
Crockett has pushed back against criticism related to her absence on the campaign, arguing Talarico is focused on flipping Republicans angry over the economy rather than courting Black voters.
“We had two completely different philosophies,” Crockett told The Sun, noting that other national Black surrogates like former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-Georgia) have yet to campaign with Talarico. “His philosophy wasn’t, ‘We’ve got enough Democrats. We just got to turn out these disaffected kind of folks that nobody ever talks to.’ His philosophy was: ‘I’m going to go get Republicans.’”
During an interview with The Grio this summer, Talarico extended an open invitation to Crockett to campaign with him. She told The Sun that she rejected an invitation to speak at a convention and that he has otherwise not directly asked her to join him on the campaign trail.
“I go where I’m asked to be,” she said. “We have not been asked.”
The Talarico campaign did not comment when asked if it had invited the lawmaker to join him.
Many Democrats believe her popularity with the base could help Talarico win over the crucial voting bloc.
“She has become a really trusted messenger with Black voters,” said Brianna Brown, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, whose PAC endorsed Crockett in the primary. “I think that it could help credentialize Talarico in the community that don’t know him, that do know Jasmine.”
But the primary was so contentious that the relationship between Crockett and Talarico grew uneasy and things didn’t improve much afterwards — some Crockett supporters bashed Talarico for not doing enough to support Black communities in Texas and voiced frustration over their candidate’s loss.
Democratic state Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Black lawmaker who endorsed Crockett in the primary but backed Talarico after he won the nomination, said he faced some of the residual anger that bubbled among disappointed Crockett voters afterward. A month after the primary, he said he and Talarico were dining at a soul food restaurant in Houston’s Third Ward when some voters came up to Reynolds to lambast him for supporting a white man, calling him a “sellout.”
Those sentiments have since calmed down, the state representative said, particularly because Talarico has taken all the criticism on the chin to run an “almost flawless campaign.”
“There were some environments where people were … very much pro-Crockett, and they had animus towards his campaign, like, ‘We should skip the race, we should undervote,’” Reynolds said. “I think he’s come a long way on the heels of that primary to win over African American voters.”
Others also praise the outreach Talarico has done to connect with Black voters.
“He’s a phenomenal candidate, as was Jasmine. I was running my own race in the primary, so I wasn’t involved in any other races,” Rep. Christian Menefee, a Black Democrat from Texas, told The Sun over text. “I told both senate candidates during the primary that as soon as my primary was over, I was going to be all in for the Dem Nominee in the general. I spoke with James the day after the primary to get going.”
“Talarico has been at the church, the club, and everywhere in between.”
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