Talarico, Trump face off with dueling Texas rallies a week before midterm
President Donald Trump and Democrat James Talarico held dueling rallies in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday night, exactly one week before an Election Day that could hand Democrats their first U.S. Senate election win in the Lone Star State in nearly four decades.
Trump spoke 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, took 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 anticipated 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.
President Donald Trump and Democrat James Talarico will hold dueling rallies in Lubbock on Tuesday night. (Photos: Getty Images)
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."
Trump Floats Ted Cruz as New Supreme Court Pick
Trump revived the idea of nominating Texas Senator Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court during Tuesday's rally in Lubbock, saying that Cruz's unpopularity among his Senate colleagues would make his confirmation an easy win.
"I would pick Ted Cruz to be the next Supreme Court justice," Trump said, drawing cheers from the crowd. "I wouldn't even have to make a phone call, the Democrats will 100% vote for it because they hate the guy and they want to get rid of him. And the Republicans would 100% vote for it because they can't stand him."
Cruz has previously said he would decline a Supreme Court nomination, despite finding the prospect "humbling."
"In the first Trump term, the president spoke to me seriously about all three vacancies, and three times I said 'no' because I don't want to be out of the arena of the political battle. I think there's too much need there," Cruz said at a Wall Street Journal event in April .
Before entering the U.S. Senate, the Republican served as Texas solicitor general and argued cases before the Supreme Court. However, Cruz has said he prefers to remain involved in political and policy battles through elected office.
Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court during his first term: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. There is currently no vacancy on the court.
Trump held his rally at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, just about three miles from Talarico's rally at the Fiesta Center.
"I know that we're not the only show in town tonight, and I appreciate all 4,000 of you who showed up here this evening," Talarico said. "That is a lot of 'Talafreakos' in one room," he said, riffing on Trump's nickname for him.
His campaign upgraded the rally on Monday from Frazier Alumni Pavilion on the Texas Tech campus to the larger Fiesta Center.
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.
Texas Republican Senate candidate and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on October 17, 2026, in Killeen, Texas. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez/Getty Images)
"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 childcare 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 , Gray R. Thomas, Edward T. Cummins
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