Texas' top Democratic contenders for this year's U.S. Senate race, Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico of Austin, squared off Saturday in their first debate ahead of March's party primary.
The Democratic Senate debate opened with a focus on immigration enforcement, made more immediate by the killing of a civilian in Minneapolis Saturday morning, allegedly at the hands of an ICE officer. From there, the discussions ranged over the economy and affordability, labor protections, health care costs, foreign policy, the prospects for a third impeachment of Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court, and campaign finance.
The two Democrats are each seeking the chance to flip the seat long held by incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn. Cornyn is facing one of the toughest primaries of his long political career, battling against both Houston-area Congressman Wesley Hunt and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
With few exceptions, Crockett and Talarico saved their fire on the debate stage for President Donald Trump — and, to a lesser but significant extent, Paxton — while avoiding attacking each other head on.
"We are all focused on the same goal, which is winning in November and stopping a Senator Ken Paxton," Talarico said early in the debate, later going on to call Paxton, "maybe the most corrupt politician in America."
Multiple polls over the past few months have suggested that Texas' general election for U.S. Senate will be close, particularly if Paxton becomes the Republican nominee. That will force Republicans to spend resources in Texas they would prefer to spend elsewhere as they fight to hold onto their narrow lead in both houses of Congress.
The closest Crockett came to attacking Talarico was to make an aside about her superior name recognition.
"James and I served in the State House together," Crockett said. "He's actually been elected longer than I have been elected. Yet he's not as known right now, because I have engaged in these fights, and they have been right there on the front lines where people could see me out front."
Talarico, 36, is an eighth-generation Texan and a former San Antonio middle school teacher who recently earned his Mastery of Divinity degree from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Talarico first won election to the Texas House in 2018, flipping a district then-President Donald Trump had won two years earlier. During the first 2025 legislative special session, he emerged as one of the leaders of a Democratic walkout to protest the Republican-led congressional redistricting. He declared his Senate candidacy soon after the second special session ended in September.
Crockett, 44, was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. She earned her law degree at the University of Houston Law Center and worked as a public defender in Bowie County, Texas, before starting a personal injury law firm.
She was elected to the Texas House in 2020, then ran successfully in 2022 to succeed retiring Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson. Crockett quickly made a mark as an outspoken opponent of Trump and Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She jumped to the front of the Democratic field in polls months before formally entering the Senate primary in December.
Immigration enforcement and ICE
In the wake of the death of a second civilian in ICE's mass deployment to Minneapolis, the debate's moderators asked both candidates whether they would favor abolishing or defunding the agency. Neither would use those exact words, but Crockett and Talarico indicated they would push to dramatically reform both the agency and its parent, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Crockett highlighted her vote against funding the department and her support for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
"There was no way I was going to continue to pump a historic amount of money into this rogue organization," Crockett said, referring to ICE, "that is going out and is violating people's rights every single day on American cities. I was just not going to do it at the end of the day. Right now, I think that we need to clean house from top to bottom."
Talarico likewise said he supported impeaching Noem, as well as holding individual ICE agents responsible for any violations of the law. When pressed, he came closer to saying that he would vote to defund ICE.
"We need to prosecute agents who have abused their power. We have to haul these masked men before Congress so the world can see their faces," Talarico said. "We have seen this historic increase in funding for ICE. That money has come out of our health care. So, what I would say is that we should take that money back and put it in our communities where it belongs."
Billionaires, the economy and affordability
Throughout the sixty minute debate, Talarico repeatedly argued that wealthy individuals and corporations are corrupting Texan and American politics. He particularly hammered this point when the conversation turned to the issues of the economy and affordability.
One of the first questions the moderators raised was whether Congress should raise taxes on billionaires. Talarico singled out Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos by name, noting that Musk is on the verge of making more money than every elementary school teacher in the U.S., combined.
"I absolutely think that billionaires need to pay their fair share in taxes," Talarico said. "These billionaires aren't just buying yachts and jets. They are buying power. Our schools are being defunded so billionaires can get another tax break. Our health care premiums are going through the roof, so billionaires can get another tax break. Our social security benefits, our Medicare benefits are constantly under threat, so billionaires can get yet another tax break."
Crockett also argued that Congress needs to raise the tax rate on billionaires. She pointed to her vote against Trump's signature piece of tax and spending legislation, which she referred to as "the Big, Ugly Bill."
Unlike Talarico, she gave specifics on how she would go about raising taxes on the wealthy.
"The last time that we balanced the budget was when [President Bill] Clinton was in office," Crockett said, "and so, I think that we need to just go ahead and do what we know works. We need to go back to the tax rates that were in place when Clinton was in office. And we were able to balance our budget, while also being able to have people that had access to food, access to education, and access to healthcare.
Moderators also zoomed in on healthcare affordability, asking how the candidates would go about fixing or replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Talarico replied that the issue was personal to him, recalling how he could not afford his insulin shortly after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 28.
"So, when I got elected, I took on Big Pharma and their lobbyists, and we passed a $25 insulin co-pay cap, and then I passed a [Vermont Senator] Bernie Sanders idea through the Texas Legislature to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada right here into Texas," Talarico said. "We have to reverse all the cuts made of the Affordable Care Act, and we have to allow every Texan and every American the chance to join Medicare. I think universal coverage should be a nonnegotiable in the wealthiest country in human history."
Crockett noted that she was a sponsor of Medicare for All, as well as a bill by Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett that would force Texas to accept Medicaid expansion. She said she had helped force the House to vote on a three-year extension of ACA subsidies, which since has been held up in the Senate.
"We know that in the state of Texas, we lead on uninsured in this country, with over 5 million uninsured," Crockett said." What we've not talked about enough is how many Texans are actually on the Affordable Care Act and how they are impacted by these tax subsidies that were rolled back or allowed to expire in January."
The Democratic candidates on foreign policy
Crockett and Talarico both said they were determined to hold the Trump administration accountable when it came to exercising the use of force overseas.
"This President is seemingly trying to plunge us not only into a civil war with ICE, but he's also trying to plunge us into World War III," Crockett said. "And he's not trying to stop at Venezuela, which is why we must have a check on him, because he is threatening Greenland. He has decided that he wanted to threaten Cuba, and he's talking about going after Mexico, which happens to be our largest trade partner."
Talarico leaned into his economic populism when attacking Trump's seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
"This intervention in Venezuela is not only reckless. It is deeply corrupt. Trump promised the biggest oil executives in this country a 'great deal' if they gave him a billion dollars for his reelection campaign. And then he turned around and gave them a gift. He gave them the nation of Venezuela, home to the largest oil reserves in the world," Talarico said. "Billionaires don't just run our economy. They don't just run our government. Now they run our foreign policy."
Both Crockett and Talarico also said they wanted to limit military aid to Israel in light of the war in Gaza following the Hamas massacres and mass kidnappings of October 7, 2023. Crockett noted that she had cosigned a letter to then-President Joe Biden calling on him not to authorize further transfers of munitions to Israel because of alleged violations of international law.
"When it comes down to aid, I want people to understand that right now, again, we have an enforcement issue in this country. We have rules. If there is a violation of international law, then we are not supposed to continue to send the money. We are supposed to stop the money," Crockett said.
Talarico had a fierier response, leaning into his religious training and his background as a teacher. He said that Israel had a right to defend itself in light of the worst atrocities against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, but he said what was now happening in Gaza made him physically ill.
"I will use every bit of this country's financial and diplomatic leverage to end the death and destruction in Gaza, which means banning offensive weapons to the Netanyahu government and ensuring that we have candidates all across this country who are going to speak the truth about this issue," Talarico said.
The question of impeachment
One of the few areas where Crockett and Talarico appeared to differ was on the issue of a potential third impeachment of President Trump.
Crockett was blunt in her support for such a measure, singling out Trump's tariff policies alone as reason enough.
"I think that there is more than enough to impeach Donald Trump, period," Crockett said.
Talarico took a more measured approach. He cited his experience in the Texas House weighing the charges against Ken Paxton in 2023, in which he ultimately voted to impeach the attorney general. He said he would apply the same rigor to any charges against Trump if elected to the Senate.
"People can look at how I conducted myself in those impeachment proceedings," Talarico said. "I will pore through the evidence. I will treat it with the utmost seriousness, and I will vote my conscience, and I will do my duty."
The Democratic Senate debate took place in Georgetown, north of Austin, at the convention of the Texas AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education (COPE), the labor organization's political arm. The union is expected to vote on its endorsement for the contest on Sunday.
The last Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate seat Crockett and Talarico are vying for was Lyndon B. Johnson, who won in 1960, while also running for vice president.
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