James Talarico and Donald Trump Hold Dueling Rallies in Final Days of High-Stakes Texas Senate Race

LUBBOCK, Texas — On the day a sitting president landed in this West Texas city for the first time in 34 years, thousands of residents waited in lines stretching for blocks. However, the largest gathering on the east side of the city was not waiting for President Donald Trump, but rather for Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.

“We’re all closet Democrats,” said Dr. Tim Jones, a 66-year-old emergency room physician, gesturing to the dense crowd gathered outside Talarico’s evening event. Supporters cited frustrations with gas prices, diesel costs, inflation, foreign wars, and political corruption as driving them to the polls.

Less than three miles away, a similarly large crowd turned out for Trump, who hosted a rally at the expansive Lubbock Memorial Civic Center to support the Republican Senate candidate, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. In a notable strategic shift, Trump brought out Secretary of State Marco Rubio to speak, drawing one of the loudest ovations of the evening.

The simultaneous rallies in a city of fewer than 300,000 residents highlighted the unprecedented intensity of a Senate contest that has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in spending. The race represents the most significant challenge in years to the Republican Party’s decades-long grip on statewide offices in Texas. With voting concluding in just a week, Talarico has held a narrow lead in recent polling, pushing into reliably red territory in an effort to capture crucial crossover votes.

At their rally, Democrats urged supporters to seize what they described as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to flip a Texas Senate seat after three decades of Republican control. Speakers criticized the state of the economy, high fuel prices, and the ongoing closures of rural hospitals. Talarico repeatedly targeted Paxton, branding him as corrupt and labeling him a sycophant to the former president. He also criticized tech billionaire Elon Musk, who holds major business interests in Texas, accusing him of attempting to purchase his own personal senator after pouring more than $150 million into Paxton’s campaign.

“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 told the cheering audience. “We are running against the embodiment of this corrupt system. We are running against the most corrupt politician in Texas.”

On the Republican side, the campaign leaned heavily on Trump’s star power to rally the conservative base. Trump launched sharp attacks against the Democratic nominee, characterizing him as a Second Amendment opponent and an extremist out of touch with everyday Texans. Minutes into his address, Trump used the derisive nickname “Talafreako” and questioned an earlier brief absence from the campaign trail when Talarico reportedly suffered from the flu, baselessly speculating about his health.

While Texas maintains a strong Republican voter registration advantage, party strategists acknowledged that the contest has tightened amid broader voter dissatisfaction with Washington. Paxton has also faced persistent personal scandals that have weighed on his polling numbers, alongside lingering intraparty tensions stemming from a bitter primary campaign in which Trump endorsed Paxton over Senator John Cornyn, who previously enjoyed broad establishment backing.

Leaning into Trump’s support, Paxton addressed the Lubbock audience alongside the former president, noting that the two began their day with a campaign stop in Corpus Christi. Paxton recalled Trump telling him that he rarely holds two rallies for a single candidate in one day: “He said, ‘I must really like you.’ Mr. President, I really like you, too.”

As part of an apparent effort to broaden the ticket’s appeal, Trump again featured Rubio as a speaker, mirroring an earlier appearance in Corpus Christi. Rubio, who has maintained higher approval ratings than many figures in the administration and is considered a potential contender for the 2028 presidential race, kept his remarks concise.

“Our enemies are weaker. Our country is stronger, and our people are safer because Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States,” Rubio told the Lubbock crowd.

Talarico embraced the derogatory moniker assigned to him by Trump, drawing deafening cheers when he noted the large number of “Talafreakos” gathered in the room. More than 4,000 people registered to attend the Tuesday night event, according to his campaign.

“They are scared. They are terrified. They see what we see — that we’re about to win this election,” Talarico declared.