LUBBOCK, Texas — Two rallies, two crowds, and two wildly different visions for Texas collided in this deep-red West Texas city on Tuesday night, as President Donald Trump headlined a rally for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton just four miles from a competing event for Democrat James Talarico.
Trump supporters began camping outside the Lubbock Civic Center as early as Monday night, according to Fox News Digital, calling the event a "once-in-a-lifetime experience." The venue holds roughly 4,900 people. Across town, about 4,000 Talarico supporters gathered near the Fiesta Center, where the Democrat's campaign moved the speech from a smaller venue to accommodate the crowd, according to the Associated Press.
The dueling events put Lubbock's political identity on display. Trump carried Lubbock County by a 69%-29% margin in 2024 and won Texas statewide by 14 points. Yet polls cited by Fox News Digital show Talarico narrowly leading Paxton, and the race has drawn national money and attention as Democrats eye a pickup in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator in more than two decades.
Outside the Paxton rally, Trump voters dismissed the idea that the race was close.
"What else do the Democrats have? They have Talarico going against Paxton," Jenny, who traveled from Brownsville, told Fox News Digital. "All they've got is the ability to try and make people think that it's close and there is no point in voting."
Eric, a Lubbock resident, predicted a Republican win and said Democratic policies do not align with his views.
"Most of the Democrats that you talk to, when you start talking common sense to them, a lot of them, they don't know if it's a red or a blue policy, and a lot of them line up with red as well," he told Fox News Digital. "It's gonna stay red, absolutely."
Nathan, from Milton, said he wants to preserve what he sees as Texas' traditional values, including gun rights and opposition to abortion.
"I want to make sure we are keeping all the normal values that we have in Texas," he said. "I want to make sure that we are keeping our guns, we are keeping our safety, keeping abortion as far away from Texas and do everything we can to keep Texas, Texas."
Across town, Talarico supporters told Fox News Digital that Trump's appearance alongside Paxton showed Republicans were worried about losing ground in a reliably red state. One supporter quoted by the outlet asked incredulously, "Trump's in Lubbock, Texas?"
The Democratic argument rests on turnout. Democratic analysts say blue precincts in Dallas and Houston's Harris County are drawing bigger crowds of voters than GOP ones, according to the Associated Press. Republicans counter that Trump-backing voters increasingly prefer to cast ballots in person on Election Day, the AP reported. Paxton needs to run up the score in West Texas while Talarico seeks to blunt his advantage in the region and rack up margins in the state's sprawling metro areas of Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.
Trump, meanwhile, spent the afternoon in Corpus Christi before flying to Lubbock. The AP reported that at the earlier stop he repeated his usual claims that he had no choice but to attack Iran and that the price of gas would soon plunge.
Democrats likely need to win at least four Republican-held Senate seats to retake control of the chamber, including Texas, according to the AP. That once seemed like a long shot, but with Trump's approval rating at historic lows, pundits now give them better than even odds of flipping the Senate, the outlet reported.
The Texas race has become a national proxy fight. Paxton, the state's attorney general, has been a fixture of conservative legal battles for years. Talarico, a state representative from Austin, has become a Democratic fundraising magnet. The outcome in Texas could determine which party controls the Senate next year — and the dueling rallies in Lubbock on Tuesday showed both sides know it.
Our Take
Here's the tell in this story: Democrats are so desperate to flip Texas that they're throwing a rally for a state representative as if he were a presidential contender — while the actual President of the United States has to come to Lubbock to lock down a state he won by 14 points. That's not confidence on the left. That's a Hail Mary.
And look at what the Talarico crowd is selling. Their entire argument is that Trump showed up. Four thousand people at a Fiesta Center parking lot doesn't erase Lubbock County's 69%-29% margin. The folks outside the Civic Center get it: Talarico's surge is a media invention designed to make patriots think their votes don't matter. Don't believe it.
The Democrats need four seats and they're telling their donors Texas is in play. Paxton's job is simple — run up the score west of I-35 and let the metro margins decide it. Trump knows exactly what's at stake. That's why he's here.
Question is, patriot: are you going to let the legacy media convince you Texas is turning purple, or are you going to show up on Election Day and prove them wrong again?
