Dem Star Jasmine Crockett Says She Deserved Oversight Committee Top Spot Due to Large Social Media Following

Rising political star Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) revealed to The Atlantic in a recent profile that she deserved the top Democrat spot on the House Oversight Committee due to her large follower count on social media.

Earlier this year, Crockett began pitching herself for the top Democrat spot on the House Oversight Committee to fellow party members, sending text messages, emails, and hosting conversations on the House floor. The space was awaiting vacancy due to Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly (VA) planning to step aside as he battles a recurrence of esophageal cancer. Crockett lost the pitch, and Democrats eventually voted in Rep. Robert Garcia of California. According to The Atlantic, Crockett barely stood a chance and received just six votes before dropping out:

To Crockett, the race had become a small-scale version of the Democratic Party’s bigger predicament. Her colleagues still haven’t learned what, to her, is obvious: Democrats need sharper, fiercer communicators. “It’s like, there’s one clear person in the race that has the largest social-media following,” Crockett told me.

Crockett, who reportedly keeps a headshot of herself as her phone lock screen, originally pitched herself to Democrat Maxine Dexter of Oregon in a private meeting where she declared that the Democrats had a problem with communication while insisting that the American people seemed unaware of the fact that Joe Biden was “an old man that gets shit done.”

“Crockett highlighted her own emphasis on social media, and the hundreds of thousands of views she had received on a recent YouTube video. ‘The base is thirsty. The base right now is not very happy with us,’ Crockett continued, and if any lawmaker could make them feel heard, ‘it’s me,’” The Atlantic wrote of her pitch.

Crockett was later undone when Punchbowl News reported that she aimed to use her position on the committee to impeach President Donald Trump, which reportedly spooked more moderate Democrats:

The same day the Punchbowl report was published, 62 Democratic leaders met to decide which of the four Oversight candidates they’d recommend to the caucus. The vote was decisive: Garcia, with 33 votes, was the winner. Crockett placed last, with only six. Around midnight, she went live on Instagram to announce that she was withdrawing her name from the race; Garcia would be elected the next morning. In the end, “recent questions about something that just wasn’t true” had tanked her support, Crockett told her Instagram viewers. She hadn’t campaigned on impeaching Trump, she told me later; she’d simply told a reporter that, if Democrats held a majority in the House, she would support an impeachment inquiry. And why not? She was just being transparent, Crockett told me, “and frankly, I may not get a lot of places because I am very transparent.”

The profile also highlighted that Crockett tried to stop The Atlantic from probing further after she learned the reporter had reached out to several of her Democrat colleagues for statements. While some were supportive of Crockett’s mission, describing her as a “fighter,” others were a bit more cautious.