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.
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