There is something afoot in Texas.

In what is likely the most-watched and most-contentious Senate primary of the cycle, for both parties, Democrats nominated state House Rep. James Talarico, while the top two Republicans are headed to a runoff after both failed to hit 50%. That race pits Sen. John Cornyn against crooked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn’s crime is being a relatively normal conservative Republican at a time when MAGA demands the worst of the worst.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Jasmine Crockett entered the Senate race after she was drawn out of her district by the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting gambit. She has built a strong base of support with her wildly entertaining trolling of President Donald Trump and his lackeys in the Republican Party.

Yet it was that very public and acerbic persona that made her a risk for Democrats in a general election. At a time when Republicans are facing a demoralized and tepid base electorate, Crockett—an outspoken Black woman—threatened to give them new motivation to vote. Talarico looks like a generic white guy and speaks like a preacher (because he’s a Presbyterian seminarian), and that has advantages in a conservative state like Texas.

Yeah, it’s icky to go there, but it’s a political reality. In our discussion this past weekend on the 2028 Democratic presidential field, many of you advocated for white men precisely because it’s the safer bet in our f’d up country. It’s the reason South Carolina’s Black electorate overwhelmingly chose Joe Biden in their 2020 presidential primary: that community knows better than anyone the challenges our country still faces in electing women and candidates of color. In Texas, Latinos, feeling particularly burned by Trump and hungry for blood, went heavily for Talarico.

Crockett was never able to fully neutralize the electability argument, even though polling showed little difference between the two candidates (with Talarico polling only a sliver better). And given the stakes to Texas and our nation, there is real reluctance among Democratic voters to take risks.

Ironically—and despite the efforts of angry stans online—this wasn’t a simple progressive vs. conservadem fight, with race and gender serving as shorthand for ideology. Yes, Crockett is a member of the House Progressive Caucus, but she also had strong detractors on the progressive left who pointed to her donor history, including PAC money from BlackRock and Lockheed Martin. “To call her in any way the progressive or leftist candidate is a misnomer,” Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee told NOTUS. “She’s a somewhat effective anti-Trump troll and resistance liberal, but is not one of us when it comes to a progressive populist or anti-corporate warrior.”

That’s a harsh assessment, and probably too simplistic, but it does highlight how messy the ideological lines in this race really were. But given electability concerns, ideology was at best a sideshow.

For his part, Talarico has become a genuine political sensation over the past few years, thanks largely to a style of messaging that Democrats rarely deploy anymore. A former public school teacher and now a seminary student (with a year remaining in his studies), he speaks openly about faith while making an unapologetically progressive case on issues like abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, and economic fairness.

Instead of avoiding religion, he leans into it—quoting scripture while arguing that Christian nationalism has corrupted the faith and that progressive values are closer to the teachings of Jesus than the politics of the religious right. This is stuff you and me both understand intrinsically, but Democrats have failed to effectively message.

That combination—progressive politics delivered in the language of morality and faith—is unusual enough in modern Democratic politics that it’s helped propel Talarico far beyond Texas. It also comes wrapped in a cultural authenticity that resonates in Texas, where he needs actual votes. He’s a teacher, a preacher-in-training, and a guy who can talk about faith, community, and public service in a way that feels natural rather than focus-grouped.

Clips of his speeches and legislative moments have gone viral online, building a national following long before this Senate race took off. The Trump administration sees him as enough of a threat that they are now investigating The View for hosting him, while CBS spiked a Stephen Colbert episode featuring him out of fear of governmental reprisal.

Crockett has it too, but in a different way. Her viral moments come from her willingness to verbally body-slam Republican nonsense, which Democratic voters understandably love after years of watching Democrats bring a spork to a gun fight.

But when it came time for Democratic primary voters to choose between two charismatic candidates, electability loomed large. Both resonate nationally, but all that matters here is what Texans think.

Lone Star Democrats want to win, and they want to win badly. With Paxton a very real possibility on the Republican side, that urgency has only grown.

So when Texas Democrats made their choice, they went with the candidate they believed best fit their state.

In this political climate, Crockett might very well have won.

Talarico certainly can.

Meanwhile, the two noxious Republicans get to blow their cash and beat the crap out of each other for the next three months. Perfect.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily KosReprinted with permission from Daily Kos