Political Influencers Reshape Texas Senate Primary Discourse

The disputed allegation was first aired on TikTok.

A Dallas-based political content creator, Morgan Thompson, told her almost 200,000 followers that state Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat running for U.S. Senate, referred to former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred as a “mediocre Black man.”

The claim went viral. And, from his home gym on Monday, Allred made his own selfie-style video in which he tore into Talarico for the alleged remark and endorsed his rival in the primary, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Talarico called the allegation a “mischaracterization of a private conversation,” acknowledging he described Allred’s “method of campaigning” as mediocre but insisting he “would never attack him on the basis of race.”

By that point, though, the allegation had become national headline news, bringing a virulent, ongoing proxy war waged online by content creators in the name of their preferred candidates to a blistering head. 

The discourse around the Senate primary, which features two attention-savvy candidates, one a Black woman and the other a white man, has for weeks been driven by a mass of political content creators who often peddle amateur punditry, rumors and outright attacks against the candidates and each other. The dueling and near-constant stream of takes has come to frame the intensely competitive primary as a referendum on identity politics in the Democratic Party, hardening each camp’s views against the other and making for an increasingly hostile intraparty contest in a midterm cycle Democrats see as their best chance in years to compete statewide.

“I had such high hopes for what Texas Democratic primaries could be, and I have just been really gut-wrenched at what this primary has become — and it’s not even because of words that are consistently coming out of each candidate’s mouth,” said Olivia Julianna, a Democratic social media influencer who is backing Talarico. “We would all do a lot of good if every once in a while we realized social media is not real life.”

While the onset of political influencers predates the 2026 election cycle, this primary contest is laying bare the extent to which new media is reshaping campaigns in an era when more voters than ever, particularly young people, are following politics via TikTok and short-form social media videos that are not subject to the same standards of accuracy as mainstream news outlets. 

That the political content machine has taken such a hold here is in part a reflection of the two candidates themselves, both of whom rose to political prominence through their knack for going viral. Crockett and Talarico have regularly appeared in videos with political content creators, hoping that by doing so they can speak to both new audiences and the reliable Democratic voters who have abandoned legacy news.

“These people do have power because you have a whole generation of people that get their news from what these folks are,” Dallas Jones, a Democratic strategist, said. “They’re nontraditional media that is an avenue for campaigns to be able to get their message out. Do I believe they’re shaping a lot of the discourse around this race? Absolutely.”

When Crockett shook up the primary with her campaign launch in December, the content machine went into overdrive. 

Social media was flooded by commentators across the country fretting over her candidacy, with many convinced that her brand as a partisan flamethrower would alienate the independent and Republican voters necessary to win in a state President Donald Trump carried by 14 points just over a year ago.

“People in Texas at least like Trump,” Zaid Jilani, a blogger who writes a political newsletter, posted on X. “If Crockett had any substance whatsoever on working people issues she’d make her campaign about that. Instead she’s going for Chris Hayes’s vote.”

Crockett is betting that the enthusiasm she can gin up among the party’s base as a well-known progressive fighter will galvanize turnout among Democrats and infrequent left-leaning voters, pushing her over the edge in the general election. Talarico’s approach, meanwhile, rests on both exciting the base and winning over potential crossover voters with his emphasis on economic populism, his Christian faith and his experience as a schoolteacher.

To some in Crockett’s camp, much of the discourse read as unfair attacks on the Dallas congresswoman rooted in misogyny and racism and coded in concerns about “electability.” At the same time, some of Crockett’s supporters saw little evidence that commentators and Talarico fans were applying the same scrutiny to his candidacy.

“Why is he the ‘best chance’? Because he’s white? Because he says ‘God’ a lot?” Christopher Bouzy, a Crockett booster with over 300,000 followers on X, said on social media. “A white Democrat hasn’t won a Texas Senate seat in 30+ years. James won’t be different, and he won’t turn out the largest number of registered Black voters in the country.”

In a Substack piece posted in January before he endorsed her, Allred wrote that “much of the criticism aimed at candidates like Ms. Crockett is wrapped in the language of electability.”

“But in practice, it often functions as a quiet veto,” he wrote, adding that Black women in particular are “routinely told they’re too sharp, too loud, too polarizing — even when they are deeply connected to the very communities Democrats keep saying we need to reengage.”

In an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial board Monday, Crockett, while noting she was not blaming Talarico, said, “This race has been racially charged. There’s been some racial overtones as it relates to podcasts, pundits and things like that. And frankly, I do believe that one of the reasons that our country is in the position that it is right now is because of divisiveness.”

Talarico’s supporters, meanwhile, said their criticisms of her candidacy have nothing to do with race or gender, and instead rest on Crockett’s profile as an anti-GOP firebrand that they worry will not play well in a Republican-leaning state. Many of them also condemned the return of identity politics as a major factor that doomed the Democratic brand among voters in recent election cycles.

“The problem with Jasmine Crockett is not racial. Give me a break,” Jilani posted on X. “Her rhetoric is her approach as an individual and it has consequences in politics.”

When comedians Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang opined on their podcast, “Las Culturistas,” that Crockett was too “well-defined” as a politician to win in Texas and told their listeners not to donate to her, backlash calling their comments racist and misogynistic pushed them to quickly apologize and walk back their remarks.

Talarico boosters were incredulous.

“nope. we’re not doing this ‘it’s automatically racist and sexist to ever say a Black female politician isn’t 100% a magical perfect being’ thing again,” Armand Domalewski, a Democratic political podcaster who has posted in favor of Talarico’s campaign, said on X. “It’s 100% legitimate to urge people to not donate to a politician because you think they’re not a good candidate!!!”

And so the social media battle lines were drawn, camps pitched on each side dogmatizing Crockett and Talarico’s differing theories of how to win statewide while denouncing the other side’s position as either a product of racism or misguided identity politics.

“This is all, to me, negative polarization,” Julianna said. “I think a lot of people have been negatively polarized into the position that they have” because of the online dustups.

The scraps have largely been fought without involvement from the candidates themselves.

Talarico has repeatedly affirmed that he is running a positive campaign and is uninterested in tearing down Crockett.

“I want to welcome Congresswoman Crockett into the Democratic primary race,” he said in a video on social media the day she joined the race, a message he has repeated in interviews and at campaign rallies since. “We will always treat Congresswoman Crockett with the utmost respect. She is my colleague and she is a leader in our state. She deserves nothing less.”

When asked by a content creator about “vicious attacks” on Crockett by “people that may or may not be connected with your campaign,” Talarico emphasized to his supporters that “we all have the same goal” of flipping Texas blue, and that the “competition should be healthy, it should be respectful.”

“That’s the only way I want us to conduct ourselves in this campaign,” Talarico said in the video, which was posted Jan. 20.

Campaigns and super PACs cannot coordinate on messaging. But a pro-Talarico super PAC on Thursday launched the first negative TV ad of the primary, painting Crockett as the GOP’s preferred candidate in the general election. Republicans have made no secret of their belief that Crockett would be easier to defeat.

Crockett has largely refrained from attacking Talarico head-on, but she praised Allred’s video and said it was “unfortunate” that “this is what we’re facing” at the start of Black History Month.

During the only debate of the primary, she dinged Talarico for his donor history and relative lack of name recognition. Crockett also lent credence to the idea floated by a campaign surrogate, state Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, that Talarico, if elected, could morph into Texas’ version of Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has broken with the left and staunchly supported Israel amid the war in Gaza after running as a progressive.

“I’m not saying that would necessarily be the case with James Talarico,” Crockett told CBS News Texas. “What I’m saying is people don’t know. You know exactly what you’re going to get with me.”

Rodríguez Ramos, D-Richardson, also cast doubt on Talarico’s Democratic bona fides because he backed Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows in the race for the gavel in the Texas House last year — a criticism that has since circulated on social media. As the minority in the GOP-dominated Legislature, most House Democrats voted for Burrows as speaker, and Crockett voted for a Republican speaker when she served in the Texas House. Rodríguez Ramos ran a protest campaign for the gavel last year, and ultimately voted for state Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, who was the pick of the insurgent right wing.

Nevertheless, each candidate’s internet champions began increasingly associating their opposition to the campaigns themselves, prompting allegations that Talarico’s team was condoning or not earnestly trying to shut down racist or misogynistic commentary by his supporters, and that Crockett’s team was feeding misleading or negative content about Talarico to friendly creators and boosting the output.

Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said, “Any claims that the team has engaged in racist online smears or that James is racist are completely without basis and deeply irresponsible.” 

“This campaign is fighting against the billionaire-controlled social media algorithms that divide us by elevating conflict and misinformation,” Ennis added in a statement. “The only way to end one-party rule in Texas is by turning down the temperature and bringing people together across our differences to defeat Republican extremism.”

Ennis said that a Facebook group called “Talarico for Texas” — in which a member with administrative privileges said Democrats had to “put forth a lighter complexion” than Crockett’s — is a “fan page not organized by the campaign.” Some Crockett supporters have presented the comment as evidence that Talarico’s campaign is sanctioning racism.

A Crockett spokesperson said her campaign does not pay any content creators, and any backing Crockett receives from influencers online is a reflection of their personal support for her.

Both Crockett and Talarico have appeared numerous times in videos with various Democratic content creators. Talarico, for instance, had previously recorded a video interview with Thompson, the creator who later accused him of the “mediocre Black man” remark. 

But content creators are not journalists, Jones, the Democratic strategist, noted. 

“There are no codes of ethics that you as a member of the press and free media abide by,” he said. “These folks are not beholden to these things, so they can get out and use whatever four letter words they can get out and say.”

The Democratic political influencer economy, especially in Texas, is still in its adolescence. Campaigns are still figuring out the kinds of relationships they should have with different creators.

“We absolutely need them,” said Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist who produces online videos about politics. “The problem is, they have their own motives, and they’re not journalists, and they can inject themselves into these races however the hell they want. And that’s not tenable.”

And ultimately, Jones said, it’s up to the campaigns to be careful in how they work with political influencers to ensure they do not end up controlling the narrative of the race.

“It’s dangerous,” he said. “But they’re here. We have to figure out who’s reputable, who’s not.”

This story was originally published on Texas Tribune on February 6th, 2026