The Texas Primary That Exposed the Future of Unregulated Creator-Led Political Fighting

One of 2024’s most closely watched congressional primary contests wrapped Tuesday, when 36-year-old James Talarico — an Austin, Texas-based Presbyterian seminarian and sitting state representative — defeated incumbent U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett in an upset that signals a major shift in digital political campaigning.

While both candidates boasted massive, loyal social media followings (Talarico counts 1.6 million TikTok followers, while Crockett leads that metric with 2.6 million), the race’s viral national buzz was not driven by the two politicians alone. Instead, the independent online creators orbiting both campaigns offered an early, unfiltered preview of the messy digital battles that will shape the 2026 midterms and, ultimately, the 2028 presidential election.

The Talarico and Crockett campaigns pursued starkly different digital brand strategies. Crockett has built her national profile on unapologetic confrontation, going massively viral in 2023 after lashing out at Marjorie Taylor Greene for having a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body” and telling billionaire Elon Musk to “fuck off.” By contrast, Talarico’s online presence reads like a folksy populist sermon shared directly with his own audience. He has taken this style to unlikely mainstream platforms, including The Joe Rogan Experience, where his appearances have spawned dozens of viral clips that expanded his reach far beyond Texas’ statehouse.

For the most part, however, the most incendiary drama of the primary originated outside of the two candidates’ official campaign teams. Back in January, the co-hosts of Las Culturistas, a hit pop culture and comedy podcast, sparked a firestorm of criticism after urging listeners not to support Crockett during an on-air discussion. “Don’t waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett, do not do it,” co-host Matt Rogers said at the time. The podcast faced immediate backlash from its own audience and Crockett’s supporters, forcing the hosts to issue a public apology.

That incident was the first in a string of online feuds that reached a fever pitch in February, when Dallas-based creator Morgan Thompson claimed Talarico had privately called former U.S. Representative Colin Allred a “mediocre Black man.” Thompson’s video, shared with her roughly 200,000 TikTok followers, spread like wildfire, moving from insular pro-Crockett online circles into mainstream national news coverage. In response to the allegation, Talarico’s campaign called the claim a “mischaracterization” of an off-the-record conversation between the candidate and Thompson: Talarico said he had called Allred’s approach to campaigning “mediocre,” not Allred himself.

“I would never attack him [Allred] on the basis of race,” Talarico said at the time. “As a Black man in America, Congressman Allred has had to work twice as hard to get where he is. I understand how my critiques of the Congressman’s campaign could be interpreted given this country’s painful legacy of racism, and I care deeply about the impact my words have on others.”

This entire controversy highlighted a pressing, unanswered question for political strategists heading into the 2026 midterm cycle and the 2028 presidential race: What role should independent creators play in modern campaigns, and how can teams manage these inherently unpredictable relationships? While formal collaborations between campaigns and online creators are now standard practice for both major political parties, these partnerships are almost always loosely defined and nearly impossible for campaigns to fully control.

“There are so many factors that the campaign staff themselves have to deal with and think about,” says Kyle Tharp, who authors Chaotic Era, a newsletter focused on digital political trends. “Do I put them in the press risers at the rally, or do I give them upfront VIP access? Do I give them a couple minutes with the candidate? Am I going to be screening their questions? Or do I just let them riff and hope for the best?”

Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign leaned heavily on partnerships with creators and podcasters to reach young, predominantly male voters that traditional campaign outreach often fails to engage. But over the last year, many of those same creators have publicly turned against Trump. Ahead of the 2024 election, Trump appeared on Flagrant, a popular podcast hosted by comedian Andrew Schulz. But Schulz’s early support for Trump quickly curdled into anger. Last summer, Schulz took issue with Trump’s failure to release documents tied to Department of Justice investigations into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Since that break, Schulz has repeatedly leveraged his large platform to criticize Trump.

Creators’ first loyalty is always to their own audience and the engagement that comes from unfiltered interactions with politicians. Unlike traditional journalists, who operate by a formal set of professional rules (including agreed-upon ground rules for off-the-record conversations), creators work outside these established constraints. Relationships between creators and politicians are typically rooted in personal trust, not shared professional norms. If a creator believes a politician has broken that trust, there is nothing to stop them from publishing a hostile viral post that spins far beyond a campaign’s ability to control. What started as a major campaign asset can quickly turn into a damaging liability.

“A lot of these creators are looking for access and being able to engage either on the record or off the record with the candidates on a more personal level, and get to know them so then they can then communicate that to their own audiences,” says Tharp. “There are some pitfalls with that.”