LUBBOCK, TX — Exactly one week ahead of the 2026 midterm Election Day, President Donald Trump jetted across the Lone Star State from Corpus Christi to Lubbock to coax West Texans into voting for Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton.
Trump’s visit to the 273,000-person city was certainly welcomed and celebrated by locals. Thousands of MAGA and Charlie Kirk gear-wearing attendees who lined up to tailgate hours before the rally doors even opened and stayed to watch a rally livestream on jumbotrons when the Lubbock Civic Center venue reached capacity.
The event served as a snub to Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico, who hosted his own Lubbock rally the same night less than three miles away. This fact pleased Renee Taylor, a Lubbock local who told me Talarico has no place in Texas politics.
“Who would want anyone to run our Senate that thinks God is nonbinary and has six genders and wants our children mutilated?” Taylor told me while she waited in line to enter the Trump rally.
While the people I talked to said they planned to or had already voted for Paxton, they were largely in attendance to see and express support for Trump. Taylor’s goal in attending was to “show [Trump] that this town right here is really in favor of him.” The Texas attorney general seemed to recognize this as the crowd’s reigning attitude and only took the stage for a few minutes.
Trump, unbothered by the shortness of Paxton’s speech, used the momentum ignited by his presence to highlight the Republican’s track record. He called the Paxton the “best [attorney general] ever.” The candidate’s legal victories include shutting down Texas Children’s Hospital’s illegal child transing scheme and replacing it with a free detransition clinic, securing several key election integrity wins for the state, and taking on the illegal abortion pill black market and outlaws who run it.
Trump also let loose on “Tala-freak-o.” He poked fun at the Democrat’s “non-meat campaign” commitment with a joke about barbecue-induced indigestion being the cause for Talarico’s recent absence. The president also warned that a vote for Talarico means a vote for a candidate who supports gun grabs and regulating oil and gas companies out of business.
The Elephants In The Room
When Trump wasn’t talking about the Texas Senate race specifically, he was tooting his own horn on the administration’s victories in the farming and oil and gas industries and calling out other radical Democrats like Rep. Ilhan Omar (or, according to U.S. government documents, Ilhan Nur Said Elmi) and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
The president’s comments about falling gas prices and the Iran War were a direct appeal to voters whose biggest concerns heading into the midterms are affordability and another Middle East conflict.
Madeline and Avery, two high school students who attended the rally with Turning Point USA’s Club America, told me ahead of Trump’s speech that they were worried about rising costs.
“Everyone’s getting cars now, and gas is really pricey. Like getting a job and all your money going straight to gas,” Madeline said.
Avery, who drives a truck, said she specifically wanted to hear Trump discuss “lowering diesel prices.”
They weren’t the only ones. Sawyer, a high school senior who volunteered at the rally, agreed that affordability is front of mind for him and his peers.
“I know the younger generation is struggling a lot with economics, especially in housing and things like that. So that’s one big thing I hope he’ll cover,” he said.
Hudson Goldsmith, a freshman at Texas Tech University, attested to feeling the financial squeeze.
“As a college student, I think just money matters. Like I gotta, I gotta pinch,” Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith also expressed concerns about the Iran War.
“As a young American who is eligible for the draft, I would say I’m kind of against it. Like I don’t really want to die. War kind of increases that chance of me dying,” Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith’s father Paul Goldsmith, however, believes that “Iran was a real threat and what Trump did was necessary.” He said he’s happy with most everything Trump has done since taking office again, but wished the president would “get more of the illegals out.”
‘Too Close’
The president’s presence in the 806 may have yielded a crowd “packed to the rafters,” but it’s not exactly the gift or good omen Trump rally-goers may have thought it was.
Lubbock is a Republican stronghold — especially in elections involving Trump. Even during the Lone Star State’s last heated U.S. Senate race in 2018, incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz won the West Texas county with 64.2 percent of Lubbockites’ votes. Trump’s visit to such a red region suggests GOP is worried that Talarico might have a chance at getting elected. Even the president himself admitted that the race for the second Texas seat in the U.S. Senate is “too close.”
As several rally speakers, including Texas Tech University System Board of Regents Chairman Cody Campbell, noted, red West Texas counties such as Lubbock are known to “save the state” from Democrat cities like Austin, Dallas, and Houston.
Taylor admitted to me that she’s worried about Democrats’ radical socialist agenda infiltrating her state by way of Talarico, but she claimed she is “not nervous nervous” about the election’s outcome.
“I do think God’s in control,” Taylor concluded.
