President Trump held two rallies in Texas on Tuesday to campaign for Senate candidate Attorney General Ken Paxton and several House candidates, including South Texas Rep. Monica De La Cruz.
The campaign stops in Corpus Christi and Lubbock as Republicans fight to avoid their first statewide defeat in Texas in more than 30 years. CBS News considers the race between Paxton and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico a throweven though Mr. Trump won Texas by more than 13 points two years ago.
Talarico organized a rally nearby in Lubbock.
During his visit to Lubbock, the president touted his record and offered his familiar refrain to voters: “Pretend I’m on the ballot.” He also encouraged voters who are hesitant to vote for Paxton: “Before you pull the trigger… take a look at your 401(k).”
He also predicted that gas prices – which are high due to the war in Iranfrustrating many voters, will fall “very, very quickly”. But he noted that Texas’ oil industry has performed well.
“We are making an absolute fortune. More than ever,” the president said. “Texas has never done numbers like this.”
Mr. Trump lashed out at Talarico and said that if Democrats took control of the Senate: “I’ll veto like crazy, okay? But I’d rather work on the positive side than the negative side.”
The president also defended an eyebrow-raising remark at a rally earlier this month, when he marveled at Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio’s college football career and described “examining his body” and “looking at his butt.”
“I made the mistake of saying I started by studying his butt,” Mr. Trump told the crowd in Lubbock on Tuesday, pointing out that he had also complimented other parts of Husted’s anatomy — his hands, his feet and his shoulders — and lamenting that the media “only covers the butt part.”
Mr. Trump argued that the Husted joke helped Ohioans in the polls.
“Maybe I should do this with Ken Paxton, but I’m not sure your body qualifies,” he said.
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