Hundreds of cars and trucks are already parked up in the field across from the dance hall where Jasmine Crockett is due to speak when the word comes through. The owner of the farm building nearby has been in touch. Any vehicle not removed will be towed. It causes midmorning pandemonium as people hurry from the venue to re-park their cars along the straight, narrow farm road, and the mood suggests the nuisance is not coincidental.
“They’re tryin’ to test us,” one woman says.
“Not one Lubbock police here for this today. Not one.”
Thirty minutes later, there’s a straight line of cars parked for half a mile on either side of the Hideaway events hall, a plain corrugated steel building whose inside has been prettified by floral displays and fairy lights. It’s an unlikely place to hold any event: a lonesome country road about 11km south of Lubbock amid agricultural supplies buildings and barren cotton fields. The sun is shining but there’s plenty of February left in the wind. But the extra effort of getting here, and parking here, seems symbolically appropriate.
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Crockett, the 44-year-old Democrat congresswoman with a reputation for feisty one-liners and a series of spectacular political takedowns, is adamant she can become just the third black female member of the US Senate. This despite the fact that her home state, Texas, has returned no Democrat since 1988 and that Crockett, a fiery rhetorician who has been fearless in her denunciations of Donald Trump, has long been an attack source for Republicans in the state.
The long trek west to Lubbock makes little sense for Crockett as an exercise in mass vote-getting. But, as she explains, she happened to see an email sent to her campaign inbox from a 15-year-old Lubbock girl, Brooklyn Duvall, wondering whether Crockett, like her Democratic primary opponent James Talarico, would be visiting the area.
“This visit will always be very special to me,” Crockett explains afterwards to a small gathering of Texas television reporters.
“I will never forget it, for a lot of reasons. But mostly because it was initiated by a 15-year-old girl. I did not know if we would have time to do this. My schedule is a little bit packed because I am a sitting member of Congress which means I am constantly in DC. And I have also been in this race for a little more than two months. But one thing I did not want to do was disappoint a young girl. And having her reach out – it hit me in a different way.”
The local Democrat team had asked the teenager to introduce Crockett to the crowd and, as it turns out, Duvall is a formidable speaker in her own right, talking about the challenges facing young black women in a traditional and conservative part of Texas.
“I’ve always looked up to Jasmine and then, when I saw that James Talarico was coming to Lubbock, I had to see if she was coming,” she told me after the event, and hundreds of supporters were waiting to have their photo taken with Crockett.
“You know, I go to a predominantly white school and for someone who looks and talks like me, I face the challenges every day with all the Republicans talking about DEI. It is kind of frustrating and looking to leaders like Jasmine definitely makes it easier.”
The version of Crockett who turned up in Lubbock on Monday was low-key and thoughtful, a world removed from the fizzing highlight reels. She guided the audience through her accomplishments as a legislator and spoke about the issues facing Texas, from funding for education to a spiralling crisis in farming.
The local news over the weekend was dominated by the announced closure of West Texas Lubbock feeders, a big cattle-feedlot that has been part of the community since 1955. The closure of the Mexican border to cattle trade after the re-emergence of a screwworm threat a few years ago, added to historic low cattle numbers within the state, convinced the owners to close their doors for good once the current inventories are completed. It’s another footnote in a bleak trajectory for farming. Texas accounts for 40 per cent of the national cotton crop and Lubbock prided itself as the state’s cotton capital. But its average output of 3.7 million bales has halved in recent years, with the cost of production outstripping the price per bale. Many fields lie fallow as farmers pivot to a different crop source.
I am bigger than my viral moments, which are flashes ... I actually have a tonne of substance
— Jasmine Crockett
Less predictable rain patterns, the sharp demise of available immigrant farm workers, which has accelerated under the hardline deportation policies of the Trump administration, and a reluctance among younger generations of farming families to remain in the business has led to a steady decline in the tradition. Texas has been ravaged by farm closures: the overall farmland in the state has decreased by 1.6 million acres over a five-year period up to 2022. Crockett points out she has a track record of advocating on behalf of farmers’ interests in her years on the House committee on agriculture, and she used this visit to the western part of the state to expand on that.
“To go to farms and ranches and have real conversations about the fact that the Farm Bill is already three years overdue. When we get to rural areas we see the interconnectedness – how when the farm shuts down, that impacts the meat packing plant; and how that then impacts the restaurants nearby. I think it allows people to see that I am bigger than my viral moments, which are flashes. But I actually have a tonne of substance. And I have been attempting to make sure I have been pushing forward with issues for all Texans.”
Her campaign revolves around her track record in Congress and a national profile constructed on a fearless, combative attitude. “Poll after poll shows me beating Ken Paxton [the favourite to win the Republican primary] in a race,” she told the gathering. If she does edge out state legislator Talarico to earn the Democratic nomination next Monday night, the November midterm election will probably pit Paxton, a white, male uber-Maga attorney general for Texas, against Crockett, a black female public defender turned progressive politician. It will feel like an elemental battle.
“Listen. Let me say it this way,” Crockett says with a smile when asked about the doubts she can overcome three decades of Republican dominance.
“Number one, I’m not running on my race or my status. I am running on my qualifications. So, I can win if people just focus on qualifications. That’s it. If we are gonna go to race, let’s talk about it. The state of Texas has more Afro-Americans than any other state. So here it is. We have two black women that are currently serving in the United States Senate and their states do not have as many black people as ours. So, if they can get there, then why can’t I? This is all about people just playing us and being small-minded.
“There were a lot of people who told a 44-year-old junior senator out of Illinois that he could never be president of the United States. We can do this. Don’t listen to the hate and the noise. That’s small-minded people. Let’s just focus on the fact that I have the credentials and if we are talking about demographics, this doesn’t look like Iowa, y’all. Texas is quite a diverse state.”
