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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, which once again has had the NFL reject its pitch to perform a live reading of this newsletter as the Super Bowl halftime show.

The United States, and its news, failed to improve this week. Congress did fund the government but is already stuck ahead of the next spending deadline. Tulsi Gabbard remains at large. And while it’s not entirely about politics—though it’s not not about politics—we couldn’t resist a few words about the gutting of the local newspaper.

Blah, blah, life is sad—well, not anymore, because we’re kicking off 2026 primary season with Texas Week! Everybody grab two handfuls of sizzlin’ Texas chili (??) and git to reading.

1.

James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett

Entering the thick of primary season.

We are less than a month from the start of 2026 primary season, as Texas voters go to the polls on March 3. This is welcome news to the Surge. Early primary coverage feels so distant with its talk of endorsements, “war chests,” and other lifeless stats. Now we can cover proper knife fights down the stretch.

The prime drama of the week came in Texas’ competitive Senate Democratic primary between state Rep. James Talarico and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, of Dallas. It started when Morgan Thompson, a Texas TikTok personality, said that Talarico had told her privately “that he signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable and intelligent Black woman.” The Black man in question is former Rep. Colin Allred, who ended his Senate campaign last year and switched to a House race. Allred then posted his own video response in which he endorsed Crockett and trashed Talarico, telling him, “If you want to compliment a Black woman, just do it. Just do it. Don’t do it while also tearing down a Black man.” For his part, Talarico said Thompson had offered a “mischaracterization” of his remark, and that he described only Allred’s “method of campaigning as mediocre.” (Not a particularly controversial observation there.)

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National Republicans, who would prefer to run against the more polarizing, partisan figure in Crockett, have greatly enjoyed this all. It’s been a welcome distraction from their own Texas problems.

2.

John Cornyn

How much do Republicans need to worry, here?

Our view of the Texas Senate race has been that it gets way too much attention for a contest that Republicans are probably going to win by 5 to 7 points. It’s not among the top pickup opportunities that national Democrats are targeting. Democrats haven’t won statewide there since 1994, and they seriously backslid in the state in 2024. It’s expensive to run in. There’s always a lot of temptation, every cycle, for Democrats to believe that this time could be different. It never materializes.

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