James Talarico, the Democratic nominee running for the Senate in Texas against Ken Paxton, kicked off a 21-stop tour on Sunday that will take him across the state until the day before the midterm elections on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n
Mr. Talarico started his tour at an amphitheater in Plano, a Dallas suburb in Collin County, where President Trump won by more than 11 percentage points in the 2024 election. The tour comes as polls have shown an increasingly close race, though some polls indicate that Mr. Talarico has a slight lead over Mr. Paxton, the state attorney general. No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994.<\/p>\n
Mr. Talarico\u2019s trek around Texas has been called the Clear Eyes Full Hearts Tour, a reference to the TV series \u201cFriday Night Lights.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show chronicles a fictional Texas high school football team with the signature rallying cry of \u201cClear eyes, full hearts, can\u2019t lose.\u201d Three actors from the show appeared in a campaign video that Mr. Talarico posted<\/a> on Sunday: Connie Britton, Jesse Plemons and Adrianne Palicki.<\/p>\n In a speech that lasted about 25 minutes, Mr. Talarico said that he liked the motto from \u201cFriday Night Lights\u201d because it emphasized the importance of closing out the campaign strong.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to execute,\u201d Mr. Talarico said. \u201cWe have to leave it all on the field. We have to win. Our fellow Texans are counting on us.\u201d<\/p>\n The rally drew dozens of people who said they were attending their first campaign event for Mr. Talarico.<\/p>\n Tim Beahmer, 38, of Plano, said that while the rally on Sunday was his first event for Mr. Talarico, he had been following him for months. Mr. Beahmer said that one reason he wanted to support Mr. Talarico was because he thought the Senate candidate had not engaged much in culture wars.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just wants to put that aside and focus on the things that\u2019ll actually help everybody,\u201d Mr. Beahmer said.<\/p>\n Karen Malone, 67, of McKinney, said that the event on Sunday was her second time seeing Mr. Talarico. She said she voted for Mr. Trump in the 2016 election and had not planned to vote in the midterm elections until her children encouraged her to consider Mr. Talarico.<\/p>\n \u201cI voted for Trump the first time, and then I said never again,\u201d Ms. Malone said.<\/p>\n Mr. Talarico\u2019s tour will wind through Texas, hitting Houston, Dallas and San Antonio as well as smaller cities like Lubbock in the Texas Panhandle and Galveston, a beach city southeast of Houston. The tour will end in Austin the day before the election.<\/p>\n