Jasmine Crockett Would Like to Introduce Herself: DNC Insider

The representative from Texas, who overcame a “pit in my stomach” onstage this week, is emerging as an influential surrogate for the Harris campaign.

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Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, at a brunch in Chicago on Wednesday.

Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, doesn’t get nervous. Not when she spars with her Republican colleagues in committee hearings. Not when she questions the point of what she sees as fruitless impeachment inquiries.

Not even when she had the audacity to take the stage at a music festival in the Washington, D.C., area before tens of thousands of people who had not gathered to hear a politician speak.

But before Ms. Crockett addressed the Democratic National Convention on Monday, she felt “a pit in my stomach” and the weight of the moment, she told a group of mostly female mayors gathered on Wednesday for brunch on a sunny patio. She did not want to disappoint Vice President Kamala Harris, a friend and mentor who also happened to be the party’s presidential nominee. Ms. Crockett worried whether she could deliver her most important argument yet in her short political career.

And, she added, no Black female, freshman member of Congress had been allotted a speaking slot, during prime time no less.

“I said, ‘I’ve got to be perfect,’” she told the crowd at brunch.

“You were great!” one of the women shouted in the back. The room was rapt. One audience member bit her lip. Others nodded along. They had been there.

This has been Ms. Crockett all week, quick-witted and unvarnished, introducing herself to her party and the nation. The St. Louis native has emerged as a forceful speaker and surrogate of Ms. Harris’s campaign. She has attended breakfasts with the delegations of Arizona, Arkansas, California and Kentucky, and has worked to shore up the Black Democratic vote, appearing at events alongside other members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Harris campaign representatives.

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