If Talarico wins, it would give Democrats their first win in a U.S. Senate race in reliably red Texas since 1988 and could help decide party control of the Senate.<\/p>\n
Most polls show Talarico leading Paxton<\/a> by 2 to 5 points, and Democrats are more confident about Texas than they have been since Beto O\u2019Rourke came within 2.6 points of unseating Senator Ted Cruz in 2018.<\/p>\n With one week until Election Day, Trump was in Texas for the fourth time since Labor Day\u2014a reflection of how close the Senate race is in a reliably red state where a Democrat has not won statewide office since 1994.<\/p>\n He has been traveling across the country to shore up Republican strongholds against unusually competitive Democratic candidates as his war in Iran has spiked gas prices, adding pressure on GOP candidates across the U.S.<\/p>\n Republicans are hoping Trump\u2019s visit to Lubbock will motivate his staunchest supporters to vote in a contest where Talarico has capitalized on the difficult political environment and Paxton\u2019s history of ethical and legal problems.<\/p>\n Republicans need rural counties to supply at least a quarter of all votes to keep winning statewide. So far, turnout in the cities has run far ahead of 2022. Through October 23, voters with a Democratic primary history outnumbered those with a Republican one by about 75,000.<\/p>\n Talarico\u2019s visit to Lubbock is a bet that he can shave a few points off GOP margins in a region that Democrats tend to write off. O\u2019Rourke tried something similar in 2018, with a rally at the same Lubbock Memorial Civic Center on October 29 of that year. He carried only 31 of the state\u2019s 254 counties.<\/p>\n \u201cThis doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that a bunch of Republicans have become Democrats in Texas,\u201d Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist in Texas, told Newsweek.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more that Republican voters might not be as enthusiastic to vote this year as they have been in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n James Talarico vs. Ken Paxton: What the Latest Polls Show<\/p>\n Recent polls have consistently put Talarico ahead.<\/a><\/p>\n The latest survey, from Univision and conducted by YouGov, gave him his widest lead, with 50 percent support to Paxton\u2019s 45 percent. The survey was conducted among 1,000 registered voters from October 13 to 21. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.<\/p>\n Another recent survey from ActiVote, conducted among 400 likely voters, found the race was tighter, with Talarico ahead of Paxton by two points, 51 percent to 49 percent. That survey was conducted among 400 likely voters from October 17 to 21, with an average expected error of 4.9 percent.<\/p>\n Verasight, polling for VoteHub from October 1 to 20, had Talarico leading 48 percent to 45 percent among 601 likely voters.<\/p>\n An Emerson College\/Nexstar poll also found Talarico ahead, 48 percent to 46 percent, among 1,000 likely voters surveyed from October 17 to 19. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. When undecided voters were pressed to choose, Talarico\u2019s lead narrowed to 49 percent to 48 percent, with Libertarian Ted Brown at 3 percent.<\/p>\n Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Cannon<\/a> and Emma Lee-Sang<\/a><\/p>\n Update 10\/28\/26, 7:17 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump and Democrat James Talarico held dueling rallies in deep-red Lubbock, with photos and reports indicating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[145,2135,1967,168,170,169,31095,27],"class_list":["post-479315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-donald-trump","tag-james-talarico","tag-ken-paxton","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-midterm-elections","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479315","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=479315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Supporters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2301824920.jpg\"\/)
Why Trump and Talarico Came to Lubbock<\/p>\n