Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico on Thursday told CNN his Republican rival, the state’s current Attorney General Ken Paxton, is "canceling rallies because nobody is showing up." It came after Paxton’s team said they were postponing a scheduled rally in El Paso on November 1; they attributed this to scheduling and logistics. The event was scheduled to take place at the city’s Orca Event Center, which has a capacity of 130, says a listing on wedding website Green Bowtie. Talarico is hoping to become the first Texas Democrat elected to represent the state in the Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.
Five out of six recent polls gave him a narrow lead, though all are within the margin of error. Democrats are hoping to flip the Senate, which the GOP currently controls with 53 senators, in the November midterms. Should they succeed, Republican President Donald Trump would find his power significantly constrained during the final two years of his second term.
Winning a seat in traditionally red Texas would be a major step toward achieving this. Newsweek contacted the Paxton and Talarico campaigns for comment on Friday by email outside of regular office hours and is awaiting responses. Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Talarico said: "Ken Paxton is canceling rallies because nobody is showing up.
He can't recruit volunteers, so he uses AI bots. He doesn't have any grassroots donors, so he's relying on the richest man in the world to fund his campaign." A clip of the exchange was shared on X by journalist Aaron Rupar, where it received over 173,000 views and more than 10,000 likes. Newsweek has examined photographs and video from both Paxton and Talarico’s recent rallies to compare attendances.
On October 28, Paxton held a campaign rally at the Arc Light Bar & Grill in the Clarion Hotel in San Angelo that, according to The Daily Beast, which cited a video shared on X by MediasTouch, was attended by "only a few people." The video posted by the senior digital editor of MediasTouch, a self-styled "pro-democracy" media outlet, shows several dozen people standing around or sitting in several rows of chairs at the venue. They are in front of a stage holding several American and Texan flags. The video hasn’t been independently verified by Newsweek, and it is unclear at what point in proceedings it was taken.
The video appears to have been shot in the bar’s Video War Room, which, according to its official website, has a capacity of 120 seated or 200 standing. Paxton held a rally in Richmond, in the Houston area, on October 20 that was attended by "approximately 300 people," according to local media outlet ABC13. On September 30, Paxton addressed a "packed" crowd of supporters at the Summit Ballroom and Conference Center in El Paso, according to The El Paso Times.
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