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LUBBOCK, Texas – On the day a sitting president landed in their city for the first time in 34 years, people waited hours in lines that stretched for blocks in this reliably red city.
But this crowd on the east side of the city did not wait for President Donald Trump. They wanted to see Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
“We are all closet Democrats,” said Dr. “There are a lot of people who are finally upset about gas prices, diesel prices, inflation, lies, the war, everything. It’s the corruption of tearing down part of the White House to build this vanity ballroom. I think it’s just pathetic. So people finally decide, ‘We’re going out to vote.’
Less than 3 miles away, a similar scene unfolded for Trump, who held a rally at the sprawling Lubbock Memorial Civic Center as he sought to boost the Republican Senate candidate, Attorney General Ken Paxton. In a new move, Trump brought out his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who won one of the biggest applause of all the Trumps.
The duel rallies and the source of voter enthusiasm in this city of fewer than 300,000 underscore the high stakes in a Senate race that has drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in spending and represents the biggest threat in years to the Republican Party’s hold on deep-red Texas. With just one week until the election, Talarico has a narrow lead at the polls. His trip to the Republican turf is a sign that he is trying to win Republican crossover votes that he needs for a victory.
At their rally Tuesday, Democrats urged supporters to seize a once-in-a-generation chance to flip a statewide seat after three decades of Republican control. They have mortgaged the economy, high gas prices and closing rural hospitals. Talarico repeatedly cast Paxton as corrupt and a Trump sycophant. He called out Elon Musk, saying the tech billionaire — who has significant business interests in Texas — is trying to buy his own personal senator after throwing more than $150 million into Paxton’s candidacy.
“We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis. But we can change that in this election, in this state, in this race,” Talarico said. “We are running against the execution of this corrupt system. We are running against the most corrupt politician in Texas.”
Republicans, meanwhile, pointed to Trump, who cast Talarico as a second amendment-hating, meat-loathing extremist out of touch with everyday Texans. Minutes into his speech, Trump mockingly referred to him as “Talafreako.”
He mentioned Talarico’s disappearance from the campaign trail earlier in the month, when he said he had the flu. Trump said he believed the reason was either a “mental problem” or he was “sick to the stomach” from eating meat.
While there are far more Republicans in Texas than Democrats, Republican strategists say they see the contest as a real fight at a time when Americans feel anger and dissatisfaction with Washington. Paxton has also battled his own personal scandals, creating a drag on his numbers. And Texas Republicans are still burdened by infighting after a bitter primary campaign, when Trump endorsed Paxton over Senator John Cornyn, who had the support of many parts of the party.
Paxton bristled at Trump’s plea. Trump has visited Texas three times this month, holding several rallies on Tuesday.
“Isn’t it awesome and amazing to be on stage with the greatest president in my life?” Paxton told the crowd as Trump stood behind him and watched.
Paxton said he spent the day with Trump, starting with a campaign stop in Corpus Christi. He said that when they arrived in Lubbock, Trump told him that he doesn’t usually hold two rallies for each candidate: “He said, ‘I have to really like you.'”
“Mr. President, I really like you too,” Paxton said.
In a potential sign that Republicans are looking to attract a larger cross-section of voters, Trump handed Rubio a speaking part at the rally, as he did earlier in the day in Corpus Christi. Rubio has generally held higher approval ratings than others in the administration, including Trump. He is also a possible candidate in the 2028 presidential election.
Rubio, who stayed clear of mid-campaign rallies until Tuesday, took the microphone and kept it brief.
“Our enemies are weaker. Our country is stronger, and our people are safer because Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States,” he said at the Lubbock rally.
Trump called Talarico an “anti-gun extremist” and said he and Paxton were the only things standing between Talarico becoming a senator.
“They have a lot of bad people,” Trump said of the Democrats. “That’s why we can’t afford to lose some freak.”
But Talarico embraced the moniker, exclaiming that he’s never seen so many “Talafreakos” packed into one room.
“Lubbock is ready to change,” he said to deafening cheers. More than 4,000 people signed up to attend the event Tuesday night, according to his campaign. “They’re scared. They’re terrified. They see what we see – that we’re about to win this election.”
