Rep. Jasmine Crockett entered the Texas U.S. Senate race this week. Since her election to the House of Representatives in 2022, Crockett has built a national profile off viral confrontations with MAGA figures like President Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her forthcoming campaign will force a long-deferred strategic argument into the open: whether the real blue barrier in the Lone Star State is Republican strength, or the limits Democrats have placed on their own tactics and ambition.

Crockett has already made clear she isn’t going to twist herself into a pretzel to try to win over previous Trump voters at the margins. She hopes to build bridges to new voters, arguing she can run as a progressive and outperform Beto O’Rourke, who fell just short of victory in his 2018 Senate bid. While that approach has earned her enthusiastic support with parts of the Democratic base, it has also left others questioning whether she can compete in a Republican-leaning state like Texas.

This skepticism surrounding Crockett’s campaign rests on the same risk-minimizing logic that Texas Democrats have relied on for decades—a logic that has produced zero statewide victories since 1994. She deserves the chance to make her case to voters without the party pre-deciding that her candidacy is a liability.

The Democratic primary she has joined, until now, has been defined by two sharply different........

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