LUBBOCK, Texas — On the day a sitting president landed in their city for the first time in 34 years, people waited for hours in lines that stretched for blocks in this reliably red city.
But this east side crowd wasn’t expecting President Donald Trump. They wanted to see Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
“We’re all quiet Democrats,” said Dr. Tim Jones, 66, an emergency room physician, laughing and waving to a sea of people around him waiting in line before Talarico’s nightly rally. “There are a lot of people who are ultimately upset about gas prices, diesel prices, inflation, lies, war, all of this. It’s the corruption, the destruction of part of the White House to build this vanity ballroom. I mean, it’s just pathetic. So people finally decide, ‘We’re going to vote.'”
Less than 3 miles away, a similar scene played out for Trump, who held a rally at the sprawling Lubbock Memorial Civic Center as he sought to bolster Republican Senate candidate, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. In a new move, Trump brought in his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who earned one of the biggest rounds of applause of anyone Trump introduced.
The dueling rallies and voter enthusiasm in this city of fewer than 300,000 underscored the high stakes of a Senate race that has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in spending and poses the biggest threat in years to the Republican Party’s hold on red-hot Texas. With just a week until the election, Talarico holds a slight lead in the polls. His trip to the Republican field is a sign that he is trying to win the Republican crossover votes he needs to achieve victory.
At their Tuesday rally, Democrats urged supporters to seize a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win a statewide seat after three decades of Republican control. They denounced the economy, high gas prices and the closure of rural hospitals. Talarico repeatedly portrayed Paxton as corrupt and a Trump sycophant. He called out Elon Musk, saying the tech billionaire — who has significant business interests in Texas — was trying to buy his own senator after investing more than $150 million in 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 fighting against the embodiment of this corrupt system. We are fighting against the most corrupt politician in Texas.”
Republicans, meanwhile, presented Trump, who portrayed Talarico as a Second Amendment- and meat-hating extremist out of touch with ordinary Texans. Minutes into his speech, Trump derisively called him “Talafreako.”
He discussed Talarico’s disappearance from the campaign trail earlier this month, when he said he had the flu. Trump said he thought the reason was either a “mental issue” or that he had a “stomach ache” from eating meat.
Although there are far more Republicans than Democrats in Texas, Republican strategists say they view the contest as a real fight at a time when Americans feel anger and discontent with Washington. Paxton also struggled with his own personal scandals, which dampened his numbers. And Texas Republicans are still plagued by infighting after a disastrous primary campaign, when Trump supported Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn, who had the support of much of the party establishment.
Paxton relied on Trump’s advocacy. Trump has visited Texas three times this month, holding two rallies on Tuesday.
“Isn’t it great and incredible to be on stage with the greatest president of 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 he normally doesn’t do two rallies for one candidate: “He said, ‘I must really like you.'”
“Mr. President, I love you very much too,” Paxton said.
In a potential sign that Republicans were seeking to attract more voters, Trump gave Rubio the floor at the rally, as he had earlier in the day in Corpus Christi. Rubio has generally had higher approval ratings than other members of the administration, including Trump. He is also a possible candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
Rubio, who had stayed away from midterm meetings 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.
Asset called Talarico an “anti-gun extremist” and said he and Paxton were the only things stopping Talarico from becoming senator.
“They have a lot of bad people,” Trump said of Democrats. “That’s why we can’t afford to lose to a monster.”
But Talarico adopted the nickname, saying he had never seen so many “Talafreakos” crammed into one room.
“Lubbock is ready for change,” he declared to deafening shouts. More than 4,000 people registered to attend the event Tuesday evening, according to his campaign. “They’re scared. They’re terrified. They see what we see: that we’re about to win this election.”
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