By Nandita Bose<\/p>\n
Oct 7 (Reuters) \u2013 US\u00a0President\u00a0Donald Trump heads to Texas on Wednesday for the third time in a month,\u00a0placing unusual focus on a state he won easily in 2024 but where Republicans now face unexpectedly tight midterm election battles as they seek to retain control of Congress.<\/p>\n
Trump is due to speak in San Antonio alongside Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who is locked \u200bin a close race with Democrat James Talarico. A loss on November 3 would complicate the party\u2019s path to retaining its slim \u200cSenate majority and mark a major setback in a Republican stronghold.<\/p>\n
The rally is Trump\u2019s latest effort to mobilize his supporters for Paxton after staging an unusual midterm conventionin Dallas,\u00a0in part to boost him. But Trump has also publicly criticized his longtime ally, calling Paxton \u201ca pain in the ass sometimes\u201d last week before adding that Republicans \u201cneed Ken so badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s repeated trips to Texas are part of a broader push in Republican-leaning states, which were expected to be safely in hand but have instead become midterm battlegrounds. His 32-day campaign \u200cblitz has \u200btaken him through Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio and Nebraska, while Vice President JD Vance has campaigned \u2060in Alaska. Trump and Vance carried all six \u2060states in the 2024 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Republicans are struggling as voters focus on high costs and the war with Iran, giving Trump\u00a0record-low approval ratings. A Reuters\/Ipsos poll completed Monday put his approval at 32%, with Democrats leading Republicans 44% to 37% among registered voters.<\/p>\n
Trump surprised some Republicans in May by backing Paxton in a party runoff over longtime Senator John Cornyn, whom party leaders saw as a safer bet. Republicans \u200bare now spending heavily to defend territory they once expected to win comfortably.<\/p>\n
Trump won the state by 14 points in 2024, but recent polls have shown Talarico ahead of Paxton. Republicans are also defending competitive House of Representatives seats in South Texas.<\/p>\n
For Trump, the stakes are also personal. James \u2060Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said \u2060losing the Senate race would be \u201cdevastating for Republicans and devastating for Donald Trump\u201d given his support for\u00a0Paxton. \u201cI think \u200bthe president clearly will do a lot to try to avoid that outcome,\u201d Henson said.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s political operation has also poured millions into competitive House races. In \u200bSan Antonio, Republican Carlos\u00a0De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran, is running in a newly redrawn district, part of \u200ca Republican-led remapping that Democrats have called a partisan gerrymander.\u00a0De La Cruz is expected to speak at Wednesday\u2019s rally.<\/p>\n
AN UNEASY ALLIANCE<\/p>\n
Trump and\u00a0Paxton\u2019s relationship has appeared awkward at times. Paxton was recorded telling donors that Republican candidates\u2019 numbers fell after the Trump-centered convention in Dallas, according to The New York Times, while Trump has publicly mocked Paxton\u2019s clothes, speaking style and appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to be honest with you, the numbers, when we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody\u2019s \u2060numbers dropped,\u201d Paxton said in the recording. His campaign has disputed suggestions that the remarks amounted to criticism of Trump. A spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
A Siena College poll released October 3 showed Talarico leading Paxton 51% to 45% among likely voters. Brandon Rottinghaus, a political \u2060science professor at the University of Houston, said rallying \u200cTrump\u2019s base was \u201cnecessary but not sufficient\u201d for Paxton.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s visits are a Catch-22,\u201d Rottinghaus said. \u201cThe president can inspire as \u2060much as he can repel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, a close Trump ally who is also in \u200ba closer-than-expected re-election \u200crace, plans to skip Wednesday\u2019s rally, citing other campaign events.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy rallies are saving the Republican Party, again,\u201d \u200bTrump said in \u2060an all-caps post on Truth Social on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Republicans are betting Trump can still turn out the voters who powered his 2024 victory even as his broader standing has weakened.<\/p>\n
The latest Reuters\/Ipsos poll showed that just 24% of Hispanic voters approved of his performance. They were an important part of Trump\u2019s success in 2024, when he won nearly half the Hispanic vote, and are a bigger demographic in Texas than most states.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s rally is scheduled for the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, with Trump expected to speak at 6 p.m.\u00a0Central Time (2300 GMT).<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nandita Bose; Additional reporting by Nolan McCaskill and Bo Erickson in Washington; Editing \u200bby Trevor Hunnicutt and Cynthia Osterman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Nandita Bose Oct 7 (Reuters) \u2013 US\u00a0President\u00a0Donald Trump heads to Texas on Wednesday for the third time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-459025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}