Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett took the stage at her “TEXAS TOUGH Election Night Watch Party” in a downtown Dallas nightclub around 9:00 p.m. last night with some less-than-inspiring words for her followers.

“I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised,” she said, implying that Republicans had deliberately suppressed votes in her home district. “And I think you know why.”

“I won’t be back tonight, because I have no idea when we’re going to have results.” Everyone should have a good time in her absence, she added.

But like it was always going to, the dream died in the middle of the night. Before 2:00 a.m. local time, the AP called the race. Crockett, the most entertaining Senate candidate Texas has seen in a generation, lost her Democratic primary to James Talarico, whose supporters in his home area of Austin — where he won something like 800% of the vote — were waving signs reading “Love Thy Neighbor” as he called his victory a “people-powered movement to take on this broken, corrupt political system.”

A liberal Christian vibe, led by a sort of lay preacher, won the day. But those of us who follow politics for a living, as a hobby, or both, want to thank Congresswoman Crockett for her service.

Crockett’s candidacy smothered the headlines like a noontime eclipse, blotting out the sun, even though she entered the race very late, not filing until near the December deadline. After Colin Allred, the blandest former football player on Earth, left the primary, she moved into the opening. Immediately upon her announcement, a poll saw her leading Talarico by eight points. As she said at a Houston nightclub soon after her announcement, “I’m Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Right now, I’m ready to kick some ass and become your next U.S. Senator.”

Even though you could barely parse the policy differences between Crockett and Talarico with a micrometer, she played the race card like no one has played it before. She said that Hispanic voters who supported the Trump administration’s immigration policies had a “slave mentality.” Rumors floated around that the GOP wanted her to run because they thought she’d be easier to beat than Talarico, even though Kamala Harris, of whose presidential campaign Crockett was a national co-chair, endorsed her candidacy. After a pro-Talarico group called Lone Star Rising released an ad that mentioned the apparent Republican preference for Crockett, Crockett accused them of darkening her skin in the ad and called the line of attack “straight-up racist.”

What dirt did she have on Talarico? Not much. With his over-earnest, Obama-like mannerisms and Richie Cunningham haircut, Talarico is the embodiment of the good-government liberal progressive, the kind of guy the old Daley Machine in Chicago used to call “goo-goos.” So instead, we got the “mediocre black man” controversy after Talarico, on a podcast, correctly called Allred’s dead Senate campaign “mediocre.” Crockett made good hay out of that one.

When Matt Rogers, co-host of the endlessly annoying “Las Culturistas” podcast with Bowen Yang, said, “Don’t waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett,” the congresswoman unleashed a massive backlash online, forcing Rogers to apologize. And yet when CBS and the FCC “censored” but didn’t actually censor a Talarico interview with Stephen Colbert, garnering Talarico a massive national surge of publicity, Crockett’s response was muted, even soft. She knew the bird was cooked. But despite a massive fundraising disadvantage, a massive publicity disadvantage, and the fact that everyone, everywhere mocked everything about her, she actually did pretty well for a while. Not well enough, but almost.

So, what do we now face in Texas? Corruption-plagued Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, despite having more baggage than a family traveling back to India to visit relatives for six weeks, looked destined to upend the career of geriatric four-term Senator John Cornyn. But though Paxton and Cornyn are heading for a runoff in the Republican primary, Cornyn appears to have the edge, as he slightly overperformed polls on Tuesday, while Paxton and third-party candidate Wesley Hunt underperformed. It’s close, but Cornyn’s coalition of golf-shirt-wearing steakhouse people appears likely to triumph over whatever MAGA-style rebellion Paxton thinks he’s leading.

So here’s the most likely scenario: Talarico takes in countless millions of dollars from out-of-state Democrats, who once again believe they’re going to “turn Texas blue.” He’ll hold huge rallies full of enthusiastic, mostly white people who’ll cry while chanting his name. There will be a Willie Nelson concert and at least one appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. And then, on Election Day, he’ll lose by a respectable four to six points, once again bursting the bubble illusion that goo-goos can win in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic Senator since Lloyd Bentsen.

Though the primary runoff between Cornyn and Paxton will be spicy, it’s going to be an earnestly dull general campaign. It didn’t have to be this way. Texas Democrats could have voted for Jasmine Crockett. As Whitney Houston once sang, didn’t we almost have it all?

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Neal Pollack is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time Jeopardy! champion.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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Victory For The Goo-Goos? Inside Texas’s Wild Primary Night.