What longtime ‘SNL’ comedian gets about Crockett that Texas Dems don’t | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers criticized donations to Jasmine Crockett's Senate campaign.
- It exposes Texas Democrats' misguided belief that Texas is a “nonvoting state.”
- The race with James Talarico is a fight over igniting base anger vs. a broader appeal.
Nothing in politics should surprise us anymore. Still, I did not have on my bingo card “Former ‘Saturday Night Live’ comedian gets dragged for an innocuous comment about Jasmine Crockett.”
Often when celebrity and politics collide, it’s meaningless. This incident, though, represents something larger about Crockett’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate, Democrats’ internal fight over how progressive to go and the debate over whether they should feed their voters’ anger or cast for a broader appeal.
Bowen Yang, who left the venerable NBC show last month, agreed with his podcast co-host, Matt Rogers, when Rogers said that Democrats should not donate to Crockett because she can’t win in Texas.
“Any time a politician is making it too obviously about themselves, I’m already done. And don’t waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett,” Rogers said. “Do not do it.”
Crockett fans lit up Yang and Rogers online, and both have expressed regret. The attack on the comedians was built partly on race and gender, despite the fact that their comments were made in the context of criticizing Gavin Newsom, the white California governor who is a likely presidential candidate.
Democrats want to ride their base voters’ seething anger at President Donald Trump to midterm victories this year and perhaps a sweep in 2028. And these days, nothing drives partisan turnout better than rage.
Maximizing that means focusing constantly on Trump. Crockett is masterful at this, while her chief primary opponent, state Rep. James Talarico of Round Rock, is trying something different. He doesn’t skimp on Trump criticism, but Talarico aims to offer a broader appeal, particularly to Democratic or independent Christians who interpret the Bible a different way than Trump’s devoted conservative evangelical followers.
This is largely about tone and appeal, not substance. Talarico and Crockett offer roughly the same progressive positions, just in different packages. They demonstrate different beliefs about how Texas Democrats (and, by extension, the national party) should proceed.
Dems cling to idea Texas is a ‘nonvoting state,’ not a red one
Confrontationalists argue that the party’s last Senate nominee, former Dallas Rep. Colin Allred, lost to Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024 because he tried too hard to appeal to moderates or even Republicans not fully aligned with Trump.
Many such Texas Democrats cling to a shibboleth, one that Crockett herself has voiced: that Texas isn’t really a red state, it’s a “nonvoting state.”
Sure — Republicans have won everything significant in Texas for three decades not because more voters lean to the right or because Texans are generally happy with a smaller-government, business-friendly approach but because, somehow, a million would-be Democrats just happen to skip every statewide election.
It’s more of a coping mechanism than an actionable political reality. And to be fair, repeated failure to dislodge opponents such as Ken Paxton or Sid Miller would have you looking for a cosmic explanation, too.
For these Democrats, 2018 is the proof. Beto O’Rourke energized the electorate, driving new turnout and capitalizing on hidden progressive sentiment in Texas cities and suburbs in his race against Cruz.
But they’ve always misinterpreted the 2018 result. O’Rourke’s ability to find a novel message and style that almost propelled him to victory over Cruz was impressive. But there were a lot of factors in his favor: a midterm backlash to Trump’s chaotic first term; Cruz’s ability to rub people the wrong way; and the fact that some Republicans were angry with Cruz for aggressively battling Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential contest.
These Democrats misread 2024, too. Allred did not come anywhere close to an upset. But he outperformed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in a year when Trump was a lift for Texas Republicans rather than a drag.
The trope that deep down, more Texans are with Democrats despite 30 years of evidence to the contrary is self-indulgent but wrong. Research indicates that as voter turnout expands, it mirrors the electorate — if more people vote, they break down into roughly the same share of Republicans and Democrats as they would with smaller turnout.
Elections do vary, however. Turnout in a midterm year is lower than when we elect a president. This year, Democrats are counting on a surge of their voters and perhaps a lull among Republicans, and they’ll probably get it. In Texas, Democrats believe that if Paxton is the Republican nominee for Senate, rather than perpetual winner John Cornyn, the seat could truly be up for grabs.
When you start every statewide election staring at a potential gap of up to 1 million voters, as Texas Democrats do, waiting on a miracle is not a strategy. Talarico seems to understand this.
Democrats spend campaign cash on races they can’t win
It’s noteworthy that Rogers and Yang were talking about campaign money. Democrats have burned tens of millions of dollars trying to win Senate races in states where they have no shot. More than once, they poured money into Kentucky on the silly notion that former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell might lose.
Maine and South Carolina were similar sinkholes; Rogers said he donated to Maine Democrat Sara Gideon in 2020, who raised more than $74 million but lost to venerable Republican Sen. Susan Collins by nearly 9 points.
The O’Rourke and Allred races similarly drew tens of millions of dollars, much of it in small amounts from out-of-state Democrats who relish the idea of turning Texas blue. It’s like buying a lottery ticket to have permission to daydream.
A fraction of that money might make a difference in swing states and help Democrats capture and keep a majority. But that kind of foresight is governed by logic, not emotion. It’s instructive that two out-of-state comedians understand how the field is striped better than the bomb-thrower competing on it.
