CORPUS CHRISTI — Black Democrats caucusing at the Texas Democratic Party convention Friday cheered when state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, said November would bring an end to three decades of one-party statewide rule.
But some of the most emphatic applause he received during his remarks came when he acknowledged the Democratic Party’s “troubling history of taking Black voters for granted.”
“Let’s just be very honest,” Talarico said Friday to a room in Corpus Christi packed full of Black Democrats from around the state. “I am committing to you to not make those mistakes. I am committed to working with the members of this caucus to show up for, invest in and fight for the votes of every Black Texan.”
Nearly four months after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas — one of the state’s most prominent Black politicians — for the U.S. Senate nomination, Talarico’s quest to coalesce Black Democrats behind his candidacy was still ongoing among the party’s rank-and-file activists at a convention where Texas Democrats were looking to present a forceful show of unity.
The unease about Talarico’s standing with Black Texans stems from a primary in which polls consistently showed the Austin Democrat with meager support — sometimes under 10% — from Black voters. The rest went to Crockett, forming the basis of her 46% vote share in the March primary. She endorsed Talarico the day after her loss and urged Democrats to “rally around” their nominees.
More recently, however, Crockett has cast doubt on whether Black voters have unified behind Talarico and the broader statewide ticket. Ahead of this week’s convention, which she skipped, Crockett also declined to commit to campaigning for Talarico, telling the Dallas Morning News she was “more focused on down-ballot races.”
Energizing the Black voters core to the Democratic base will be critical for Talarico’s chances in November, when he’ll need a surge in turnout among left-leaning voters, even as he also works to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans — namely those repelled by the legal and ethical scandals and hard-right politics of Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton, the attorney general.
“I don’t have to tell this caucus, though, that there is no way to win this race without Black Texans — no way at all,” Talarico said. “This is not going to be easy. This is a big state, and we don’t have a lot of time. But I am looking forward to being your partner in this fight, because we have to win.”
Talarico — who also stopped by several other caucuses Friday, including the Latino, labor and Stonewall Democrats’ meetings — was well received at the Black caucus, with a notable portion of the room jumping to their feet when he appeared.
Still, Black elected officials and local activists at the convention said the Austin Democrat, along with the broader statewide ticket and state party, had more work to do to engage and mobilize Black Democrats across the state, while noting that there was still time to do so before November.
“The feeling overall is they’re not” doing enough, state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said in an interview at the convention. “A lot of Black Texans are angry. They feel disenfranchised, and they feel that the party has taken them and their votes for granted. So I am worried that folks will sit out, folks won’t vote.”
Gervin-Hawkins was among a handful of Black Texas House Democrats, in addition to local Black community leaders, who signed on to a recent letter to Talarico relaying concerns about the level of his campaign’s outreach to Black voters and asking for a clearer picture of his strategy in the coming months.
“Our intent is not to criticize but to collaborate,” a draft of the letter, obtained by The Texas Tribune, reads. “We want to ensure that Black communities are viewed as essential partners in this campaign and that the concerns, priorities and leadership of Black Texans are reflected in the path forward.”
State Sen. Royce West of Dallas, one of the state’s longest-tenured Black officials, said he was heartened by Talarico’s efforts so far to connect with Black communities. But, echoing the letter’s signatories, he said the candidate’s plan for Black outreach had yet to fully manifest.
“We’re still writing the story,” West, who has endorsed Talarico, said. “We’re not there yet. But I can tell you, I’m pleased by the steps that I’ve seen thus far.”
West, who lost the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in 2020 to a white opponent, MJ Hegar, whose Black outreach he later criticized, continued, “I see good faith — but I’ve seen good faith before that ended up being not fully realized. But this time around, I think it’s going to be different.”
Asked if he thought Talarico and the broader ticket was doing enough to earn Black voters’ trust, state Rep. Venton Jones of Dallas said, “no,” but that the next few months ahead of Labor Day — the unofficial kickoff of election season — would be the time for that organizing.
“Right now we’re waiting to see what happens. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said, while acknowledging that Democrats’ insufficient efforts to mobilize Black voters predates the campaigns of Talarico and other 2026 nominees.
Since clinching the nomination, Talarico has worked to build his support among Black voters by visiting Black churches and universities, meeting with local Black leaders around the state and outlining a policy plan to combat maternal mortality, which disproportionately affects Black women. He has also scooped up endorsements from influential Black Democrats who backed Crockett in the primary, like Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, along with groups such as Omega Network for Action, a national organization affiliated with the major Black fraternity Omega Psi Phi.
“James is doing everything he can do to figure out how to engage with the Black community,” state Rep. Aicha Davis of Dallas, a Talarico campaign surrogate, said. “He’s being in uncomfortable spaces, he’s hearing criticism, he’s taking it back and he’s planning to not just to win Black votes, but to improve Black communities.”
Some of those efforts have revealed the fledgling state of Talarico’s mission to win over Black voters. When Talarico visited Prairie View A&M University, the oldest historically Black public university in Texas, in April, just a couple hundred students attended his town hall out of a population of over 10,000, said Waller County Democratic Party Chair Denise Mattox.
“It’s not that they’re against him, or they don’t believe in him, or they don’t want to go for him,” Mattox said. But “he’s not an entity for them right now.”
Still, she said she appreciated his address to the Black caucus in Corpus Christi Friday. “That was the most important message to Black voters you can tell them: ‘You are not invisible, I am going to represent you,’” she said.
During the primary, Talarico repeatedly praised Crockett’s leadership and urged his supporters to remain respectful. But the contest was nevertheless fraught with racial tensions, with some of Crockett’s supporters accusing Talarico’s campaign of racism, based on the case many of his backers made that the Dallas congresswoman, a partisan firebrand, would be less electable in a general election. The primary was also thrown for a loop when former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, after dropping out of the race just before Crockett’s entry, later amplified a content creator’s accusation that Talarico referred to him as a “mediocre Black man,” a charge Talarico disputes.
Some of the bad blood has spilled beyond the primary, as a scattering of the social media influencers who boosted Crockett have defended her muted support for Talarico, while accusing his supporters of alienating Black Democrats by acting entitled. Those posts, in turn, have received a flood of backlash from other Democrats replying that the discourse from Crockett stalwarts is stoking intraparty divisions. Republicans have taken notice of the lingering tensions online, with several, including Gregg Keller, a spokesperson for a pro-Paxton super PAC, fanning the flames on X.
State Rep. Ron Reynolds, who backed Crockett in the primary, said Talarico “has to work extra hard to build that trust” and win over Crockett’s coalition of Black supporters, some of whom still have “hard feelings” after their candidate came up short.
But Reynolds added that Talarico’s campaign was “working diligently to earn the African American vote” and had committed to him to continuing to invest in outreach to Black communities.
“He understands that that’s probably one of his biggest hurdles right now, and he is not ignoring it,” Reynolds said. “It hasn’t materialized fully yet, obviously, but I do believe that the convention is a way to kick it off and level set it. I believe when they leave here, they’ll be going across the state.”
Recent public polling found that two-thirds of Black voters planned to support Talarico in November, with around 12% unsure either way. At this point in their respective election cycles in 2018 and 2024, Democratic U.S. Senate nominees Beto O’Rourke and Allred both polled below 50% among Black voters — and both ultimately won roughly 90% of the group.
Still, Democrats are concerned less with the prospect of Black voters defecting to Paxton, and more so with the potential that too many will stay home or skip the Senate race on their ballots.
“With Congresswoman Crockett’s loss, there are no — zero, zilch, nada — Black statewide candidates for the midterms. Black Texans are hurt, angry and discouraged,” state Rep. Jolanda Jones of Houston said on stage at the convention Saturday. “But there is good news: We can earn the Black vote — not assume it, not expect it, but earn it.”
In a nod to Texas’ history of Black leadership, Talarico opened his speech to the full convention Friday night with a quote from Barbara Jordan, the trailblazing Houston Democrat who became the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South.
“Barbara Jordan said: ‘I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to,’” Talarico said. “Barbara Jordan felt that spirit of Texas in her bones. It was the spirit that propelled her from the hells of Jim Crow to the halls of power. I feel that spirit tonight in this room.”
Disclosure: Prairie View A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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