Republicans have been delighted by Rep. Jasmine Crockett‘s (D-TX) entry into the high-profile 2026 Texas Senate race.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters Wednesday that he is “absolutely delighted that Jasmine Crockett is running for Senate in Texas” and that “it’s the greatest thing that’s happened to the Republican Party in a long, long time.”
Republicans have worked to make Crockett the “face of the Democratic Party,” along with their newer target, New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
“She is the face of the Democratic Party, she and Mamdani, good luck with that,” Johnson continued. “I want her to have the largest, loudest microphone that she can every single day.”
Democrats have brushed off the comments from Johnson, as they tout Tuesday’s major victories, including the flipping of a House seat in Georgia and the mayoralty in Miami.
“It’s like sand falling through his hands,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner of the speaker’s slim majority. “He just can’t keep a hold of it. He sees that he would much rather talk about a Senate race than he would the Georgia House races that Republicans lost, or the mayor’s race that the vice chair mentioned.”
“First time in 30 years that a Democrat is the mayor of Miami, he wants to distract and take away from this because he’s losing his grip on his majority, that much is very clear,” Aguilar continued. “So the more that Speaker Johnson wants to talk about the national landscape and Senate environment, I absolutely support, because he’s losing his majority next November, if not sooner.”
The last elected Democratic mayor of Miami was Xavier Suarez in 1997. However, former Mayor Manny Diaz, who ran as an independent in 2001, was formerly a Democrat who left the party in protest of the Clinton administration’s handling of a Cuban boy found off the coast of Florida. Diaz later rejoined the party and spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Crockett announced her bid for the upper chamber on Monday, just ahead of the filing deadline in Texas and after former Rep. Colin Allred suspended his Senate campaign to run for the lower chamber again. The Lone Star State’s new congressional map, which draws Crockett out of her current House district, was upheld by the Supreme Court.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee worked behind the scenes in an effort to get Crockett to jump in the race as the Republican primary became more competitive and expensive, NOTUS reported. The Republican campaign arm released a poll earlier this year that included Crockett’s name as a possible Democratic candidate, showing her in the lead.
The Texas Senate race is already expected to be a crowded and expensive one, as Texas state Rep. James Talarico is also a leading contender for the Democratic primary. The GOP primary is shaping up to be a bloody one after Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) jumped in the race to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
Democrats have made major gains in elections this year in districts where President Donald Trump overperformed last year. Earlier this month, a Democratic candidate gained over 10 points in the special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District compared to last year’s results.
The party has not only made headway in special elections but also in the November elections, giving the base more confidence after their massive losses in 2024. Gubernatorial elections in both Virginia and New Jersey showed a leftward swing, as did New York City, which elected socialist Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor.
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With such a slim majority in the House and a competitive Senate map for 2026, both parties are rushing to do everything they can to make headway before the new year.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the NRSC and Crockett’s office for comment.
Rachel Schilke contributed to this article.
