One day after rallying for Ken Paxton at a truck plant in Denton, Texas, President Donald Trump will head back to the state next Wednesday for a rally in San Antonio — his third Texas trip in less than a month. An RNC official confirmed the October 7 stop at the Freeman Coliseum, where Paxton and Republican congressional candidate Carlos De La Cruz will speak.
Wednesday in San Antonio: Paxton and De La Cruz on stage
The rally, reported by the San Antonio Current, will be held at the east side venue that hosts the city's stock show and rodeo. It's part of Trump's October push to turn out voters from his 2024 coalition in key states and House districts. The visit comes on the heels of Thursday's stop in Denton, where Trump urged Republicans to show up for Paxton in the midterms.
In Denton, Trump called Paxton "the greatest attorney general in the country" and said bluntly, "We need Ken so badly, that's why I am here" — while also joking that Paxton "could be a pain in the ass sometimes." Former NBA star Dennis Rodman tagged along and drew a shoutout as Trump's longtime friend, though he wasn't invited to speak.
The polls: Talarico holds a narrow lead
What's keeping Republicans up at night is the polling. Democratic state Rep. James Talarico has consistently shown a narrow lead over Paxton — a sight both unsettling and unfamiliar in a state Republicans have controlled outright for decades. Texas Democrats last won a U.S. Senate election in 1988 and haven't won a statewide race since 1994.
The threat has drawn nearly $175 million in outside ad spending to preserve the GOP Senate seat, much of it arriving since early September.
The 32-day blitz: deep-red states as the battlefield
The San Antonio stop is part of Trump's 32-day midterm campaign blitz. Thursday's route ran from Denton to a rally in Durant, Oklahoma for GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei; Friday brought a stop in Mobile, Alabama; next week includes upstate New York for gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, and a possible mid-October trip to Alaska for embattled Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Trump's former campaign strategist Luke Ball defended the red-state strategy, arguing Texas and Oklahoma "go hand in hand" and that appearances in both can lift Republican turnout across competitive districts within deep-red states. He conceded the approach is a "risk" for the president.
The Democratic National Committee reads it the opposite way, saying Trump and Vice President JD Vance are "desperately trying to rally their base as the midterm elections approach and Republicans face defeat," blaming them for the Iran war and rising prices.
A deep-red state turned battleground is the story
Trump carried Texas in three presidential elections. Now he's visiting three times in a month to defend a single Senate seat. For Republicans it's the cost of holding the map; for Democrats it's the closest their Texas dreams have come to reality in a generation. When ballots are counted on November 3, the turnout from nights like Wednesday's in San Antonio will have a clear verdict.