Trump, Talarico hold rival Texas rallies miles apart as Senate race enters final week
President Donald Trump urged voters in the deep-red city of Lubbock to send Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the U.S. Senate to advance his administration’s agenda as Democrat James Talarico held a competing rally nearby.
President Donald Trump and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico held rival rallies miles apart in Lubbock, Texas, Oct. 27, bringing the closely contested fight for a Republican-held Senate seat into a GOP stronghold.
Trump campaigned for Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center after an earlier rally at the Port of Corpus Christi. The visit marked Trump’s fourth campaign trip to Texas this midterm election season. Meanwhile, Talarico addressed supporters at Lubbock’s Fiesta Center following campaign stops in Midland and Amarillo.
The appearances came one week before the Nov. 3 election, with RealClearPolling rating the race a toss-up. Its polling average showed Talarico ahead by 1.8 percentage points, 48.5% to Paxton’s 46.7%, in a state Trump carried by roughly 14 points in 2024.
Trump’s rallies
Trump used his appearances to portray Talarico — whom he repeatedly called “Talafreako” — as too liberal for Texas, attacking his positions on guns, energy, immigration, and gender policy.
“If you’re running in Texas and if you don’t like guns, and if you don’t like meat and if you don’t like oil, I think you should be losing by a lot,” Trump said of Talarico at the Corpus Christi rally.
>> Border Patrol union blasts Talarico’s record on immigration issues <<
The President also played a video compilation of Talarico’s remarks about religion, immigration, and “transgender” issues and argued that Paxton would help advance his agenda in Washington.
The compilation included Talarico saying that “God is nonbinary” and that Jesus Christ, if He visited the Texas Legislature, would say, “Blessed are the trans children.”
Other clips showed Talarico saying that the “trans community needs abortion care too,” that there are “six biological sexes,” that Christ “has helped me reckon with my own whiteness,” and that the southern border “should be like our front porch.” In another clip, he said, “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.”
>> ‘Thou shall not kill’: Catholic voter calls out Talarico for abortion support <<
In Lubbock, Trump pressed the same themes, accusing Talarico of wanting to “get rid of your guns,” “get rid of your oil,” and “get rid of your meat.”
Trump urged supporters to vote as though he were on the ballot, warning that Democratic gains could obstruct his policies, and called for Republicans to turn out for candidates up and down the ticket.
Trump also accused Talarico of writing a Texas version of the Green New Deal, which the President called the “Green New scam,” and criticized the Democrat’s support for drag events, noting that Talarico “has attended sexualized drag shows for kids and even said that he has a favorite drag queen.”
Paxton joined Trump onstage and stressed the importance of turnout in the Republican stronghold.
“For the next seven days, get every Republican out to vote, and we will win Texas,” Paxton said.
Talarico’s rally
A few miles from Trump’s rally, Talarico addressed supporters at the Fiesta Center, where his campaign reported more than 4,000 attendees. Talarico took the stage at the Fiesta Center shortly after Trump finished speaking at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center a few miles away.
Talarico acknowledged Trump’s competing appearance and embraced the nickname the President had used to attack him, saying, “That’s a lot of Talafreakos in one room.”
He said Texans are “ready for change” and criticized the Trump administration over the Iran war and tariffs.
“Change that will roll back these corrupt tariffs that are raising grocery prices. Change that will end this corrupt war in the Middle East, driving up gas prices,” he said. “We are done with the extremism and the corruption. We’re done with the politics of division, and we are ready for something new.”
Talarico said he would lower housing, grocery, and healthcare costs, and he framed the election as a contest between working people and wealthy donors. He blamed the Trump administration’s policies and political corruption for Texans’ financial strain, calling Paxton the “most corrupt politician in Texas.”
While Talarico emphasized affordability, his positions on social issues continued to draw criticism from Trump and other conservatives. Earlier this week, detransitioner Soren Aldaco said organizers of the Oct. 14 CNN and Jubilee Media town hall declined her request to question Talarico about his position on gender “transition” interventions.
Aldaco, who is suing a therapist and counseling provider over their role in recommending a double mastectomy she later regretted, told podcast host Katie Miller in an Oct. 26 interview that she wanted to challenge Talarico’s support for those medical procedures.
“He needs to have a long-form conversation, a real face-to-face with someone like me,” Aldaco told Miller, according to Fox News.
But she said organizers informed her the evening before the event that they could not accommodate her participation.
At the town hall, Talarico defended his vote against Texas legislation that would have restricted gender “transition” treatments for minors. He claimed he supported banning surgeries for those younger than 18 but opposed the broader restrictions within the legislation, arguing that they infringed on parental rights and doctors’ ability to provide care.
Speaking to Miller, Aldaco accused Talarico of failing to address the consequences of his past positions, saying his acknowledgment that he had been wrong about the number of biological sexes did not account for the impact of his remarks.
“Okay, but what are the repercussions of that?” Aldaco said, according to Fox News. “Because I tried to get in contact with you across five [legislative] bills, four years and two sessions, and you wouldn’t talk to me about bills that would have even helped people who still currently identify as trans.”
>> Texas Children’s Hospital opens nation’s first detransition clinic under Paxton settlement <<
Comments