Kamala Harris endorses Jasmine Crockett in Texas Senate race

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has endorsed Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas in the state’s Democratic primary race for Senate, her most significant endorsement since leaving office 13 months ago.

Crockett is locked in the final days of a close contest with James Talarico, a state representative who has built a substantial following on social media. Crockett, a second-term congresswoman, has crafted her image as a bare-knuckled partisan fighter in an era in which Democratic voters have been drawn to candidates who vocally oppose President Donald Trump.

The endorsement from Harris, earlier reported by The Texas Tribune, came in a recorded phone message sent to Texas Democrats.

“Texas has the chance to send a fighter like Jasmine Crockett to the United States Senate,” Harris says. “Jasmine has the experience and record to hold Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies accountable.”

Harris urged recipients of the call to vote early or on Primary Day on Tuesday.

Though many Democratic officials have grown more skeptical of Harris since she lost the 2024 election to Trump, she has retained a strong political bond with Black voters, who also make up the core of Crockett’s base in Texas. Both women are Black.

Crockett and Harris have long been political allies. Crockett was a national co-chair for Harris’ presidential campaign in 2024 and spoke at the party’s convention.

The Democratic primary contest in Texas has boiled down to two theories of how the party could win a Senate race in the state for the first time since 1988. Crockett’s argument is that she would attract legions of Black voters and other Democrats who have skipped past general elections.

Talarico, a white Presbyterian seminarian, has made the case for expanding the party’s coalition beyond its traditional base. His apparent goal is to attract independent and Republican voters repelled by Trump and his acolytes without seeming wedded to left-wing social positions that have hurt Democratic candidates like Harris.

Harris, in the call, alluded to the long Democratic slump in Texas. “It’s time to turn Texas blue,” she said.

The former vice president joined others who have backed Crockett, including Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and rapper Cardi B. Talarico’s most prominent endorsement so far has come from Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer who is running for a House seat in South Texas.

Talarico has raised and spent more money than Crockett has, and is operating with a far more robust campaign infrastructure.

The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face one of three Texas Republicans vying for their party’s nomination: Sen. John Cornyn; Ken Paxton, the state attorney general; and Rep. Wesley Hunt. The GOP contest will go to a runoff election in late May if no candidate wins at least 50% of the primary vote Tuesday.

Trump has so far withheld his endorsement in the Republican primary race, a move that has most likely hurt Cornyn, a four-term incumbent who is viewed skeptically by the president’s base voters. Paxton has long been one of Trump’s most aggressive supporters and was on the front lines of spreading falsehoods about Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.