President Donald Trump and Democrat James Talarico will hold dueling rallies in Lubbock on Tuesday night, exactly one week before an Election Day that could hand Democrats their first U.S. Senate win in Texas in nearly four decades.
Trump is scheduled to speak at 6 p.m. Central at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center alongside Ken Paxton, Texas' attorney general and the Republican nominee for the Senate. Talarico, the Democratic nominee and an Austin state representative, takes the stage about an hour later at the Fiesta Center, less than three miles away.
The race between Talarico and Paxton is one of the most closely watched contests of this election cycle, and the closest Texas Senate race in a generation. Most polls show Talarico leading Paxton by 2 to 5 points, and Democrats are more confident about Texas than they have been since Beto O’Rourke came within 2.6 points of unseating Senator Ted Cruz in 2018.
Talarico, Trump Host Texas Rallies Ahead of Election Day
For one night, both campaigns will be working the same West Texas city.
Trump's Lubbock event, organized by the Republican National Committee, opens its doors at 2:30 p.m. Central, with a program starting at 4:30 p.m. and the president's remarks set for 6 p.m. Central (7 p.m. Eastern). The rally was originally scheduled for the early afternoon before organizers pushed it back, according to Lubbock Lights.
Trump starts his day in South Texas, with a 2 p.m. speech at the Port of Corpus Christi.
Talarico's event is a stop on his "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts" tour. Doors open at 6 p.m. Central, and the program begins at 7 p.m. Central (8 p.m. Eastern). His campaign moved the rally on Monday from the Frazier Alumni Pavilion on the Texas Tech campus to the larger Fiesta Center, at 1902 East Fourth Street. Shuttles from the original site begin at 5 p.m.
The Lubbock County Democratic Party has also promoted a protest outside the Civic Center from 2 to 6 p.m.
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Why Trump and Talarico Are Both in Lubbock
Trump won about two-thirds of the vote in Lubbock County in 2016. The South Plains and Panhandle are the kind of rural and small-metro territory where Republicans run up the margins that have offset Democratic gains in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.
Even here, Paxton is trailing in the money race.
Talarico raised $96,086 in itemized contributions from 306 Lubbock County donors in the third quarter, compared with $53,204 from 97 donors for Paxton, according to a Newsweek analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.
Tuesday’s stops mark Trump’s fourth trip to Texas since Labor Day, after the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, an October 1 event in Denton and a San Antonio rally with Paxton on October 7.
Republicans need rural counties to supply at least a quarter of all votes to keep winning statewide. So far, turnout in the cities has run far ahead of 2022. Through October 23, voters with a Democratic primary history outnumbered those with a Republican one by about 75,000.
Talarico’s visit to Lubbock is a bet that he can shave a few points off GOP margins in a region Democrats tend to write off. O’Rourke tried something similar in 2018, with a rally at the same Lubbock Memorial Civic Center on October 29 of that year. He carried only 31 of the state’s 254 counties.
“This doesn’t necessarily mean that a bunch of Republicans have become Democrats in Texas,” Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist in Texas, told Newsweek. “It’s more that Republican voters might not be as enthusiastic to vote this year as they have been in the past.”
Talarico vs. Paxton: What the Latest Polls Show
Recent polls have consistently put Talarico ahead.
The latest, from Univision and conducted by YouGov, gave him his widest lead, 50 percent to Paxton’s 45 percent, among 1,000 registered voters surveyed from October 13 to 21. ActiVote found a narrower race, with Talarico ahead 51 percent to 49 percent among 400 likely voters surveyed from October 17 to 21. Verasight, polling for VoteHub from October 1 to 20, had Talarico leading 48 percent to 45 percent among 601 likely voters.
Emerson College/Nexstar also found Talarico ahead, 48 percent to 46 percent, among 1,000 likely voters surveyed from October 17 to 19. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. When undecided voters were pressed to choose, Talarico’s lead narrowed to 49 percent to 48 percent, with Libertarian Ted Brown at 3 percent. Emerson’s Spencer Kimball said Talarico has gained roughly 1 point a month since August, while Paxton could benefit if Brown’s supporters, largely independents and Republicans, move away from him before Election Day.
A Fox News poll conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research from October 15 to 19 found the two candidates tied at 49 percent among 1,398 likely voters. Fox's previous Texas survey, released October 1, had Talarico ahead 51 percent to 49 percent.
Texas Public Opinion Research, a group run by Democrat Luke Warford, found Talarico ahead 51 percent to 47 percent among 969 likely voters from October 15 to 18, a lead one point narrower than its September poll.
Is It Enough to Flip Texas?
Whether Republicans' worst Texas Senate environment in decades costs them the seat will come down to who shows up over the next seven days.
Texas Democrats have been promised a breakthrough before. In 2018, O'Rourke drew packed crowds, outraised Cruz and helped push midterm turnout past 8.3 million. Cruz still won, 50.9 percent to 48.3 percent.
Mike Madrid, a former GOP strategist who has followed the race closely, said Democrats need very high turnout of their own voters, "a historic break of independents away from Republicans," and depressed Republican turnout. "You need all three of those to win Texas, and that's why it's so competitive right now," he told Newsweek.
Trump's two Texas stops on Tuesday are aimed at those Republican holdouts. Talarico, speaking an hour later across town, is chasing the independents and soft Republicans Madrid described.
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"I just think it might be closer than we all expected," Steinhauser, the Texas GOP strategist, said, though he still expects Paxton to win.
Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist and director of the Lone Star Project, told Newsweek that "Texas is still a state that favors Republicans." His party, he said, has to earn it: "It doesn't just fall to us. We have to take it away from the Republicans."
Texas is one of three Republican-held Senate seats where the Cook Political Report's October polling found Democrats ahead, alongside Iowa and Ohio, and all three are central to the party's hopes of retaking the chamber. Decision Desk HQ gives Talarico a 55 percent chance of winning.
The race is also among the most expensive in the country. Talarico raised $64 million in the third quarter to Paxton's $18 million, while Elon Musk gave $158 million to the Senate GOP's main super PAC, which passed the same amount to a group backing Paxton.
Top Campaign Pushes for Talarico and Paxton
The race has highlighted starkly different approaches to some of Texas voters’ top concerns.
Paxton has centered his campaign on border security, pledging to support President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, strengthen enforcement efforts and continue hard-line policies aimed at curbing illegal crossings. Talarico has called for comprehensive immigration reform that pairs stronger border screening with pathways to citizenship for long-settled undocumented immigrants and Dreamers.
Beyond immigration, Talarico has campaigned on lowering everyday costs for Texans through policies aimed at reducing housing, health care and child care expenses, while also backing the legalization of regulated adult-use marijuana and expungement of marijuana-related records. Paxton has emphasized conservative economic policies, energy production and federal spending restraint, while making border security and public safety central themes of his platform.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas