WASHINGTON — Donald Trump will travel to San Antonio next week for a rally featuring Ken Paxton, according to a Republican National Committee official — the second presidential campaign stop in Texas in as many weeks.
Trump will speak Wednesday at Freeman Coliseum, the East Side venue that hosts the city’s popular stock show and rodeo, as part of his October campaign to turn out voters for his 2024 coalition in key states and House districts. Paxton, whom Trump both embraced and mocked during his campaign in Texas, will speak at the rally, as will Republican congressional candidate Carlos De La Cruz, the RNC official said.
The visit follows the president’s visit Thursday to a truck manufacturing plant in Denton, where he urged Republicans to run for Paxton in the midterm elections. Paxton attended the event, but Trump was the only elected official to speak.
Wednesday’s rally will be the president’s third trip to Texas in less than a month, underscoring how competitive the state has become this cycle, just two years after Trump carried it by 14 points. Polls have consistently shown Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico with a narrow lead over Paxton, a sight both unsettling and unfamiliar for Texas Republicans, who have had unified control of the state for decades.
The threat has attracted nearly $175 million in outside advertising spending to preserve Republican Party control of the Senate seat, much of it since early September. Texas Democrats last won U.S. Senate elections in 1988 and have not had a statewide electoral victory since 1994.
San Antonio is home to two of the most competitive U.S. House of Representatives races in Texas — one in the 23rd Congressional District that Republicans hope to hold after the resignation of disgraced Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, and another in the newly formed 35th Congressional District. The latter was redrawn by the Texas Legislature last year as part of redistricting ordered by the White House to give more House seats to the GOP. In both districts, the majority of eligible voters are Hispanic.
Trump’s campaign trip aims to mobilize Republican voters in November. The GOP controls both houses of Congress but risks losing its majority due to the president’s lagging approval numbers and polls favoring Democrats in many key races. Trump’s campaign operation has also pumped tens of millions of dollars into Texas races through a network of super PACs, both in the U.S. Senate race and in the House of Representatives battlegrounds, almost all of which are in South Texas.
Before Trump’s stop in Denton, the RNC held a two-day midterm convention in Dallas that put Texas in the political spotlight and featured the president alongside numerous Texas candidates.
Trump’s 14-point victory in Texas, his largest margin in the state over his three presidential bids, was driven by massive gains among Hispanic voters, particularly in South Texas. But the president’s approval rating has plummeted this year due to the unpopular war in Iran and voters’ frustration with the state of the economy. Trump was 9 points underwater in the Lone Star State in the latest Texas Politics Project poll, conducted in August. Only 42% of voters gave him a favorable rating, the lowest of his second term so far.
Paxton made headlines earlier this week when he said his poll numbers had been hurt by the convention, according to an audio recording of a fundraiser released by The New York Times. But he has continued to accompany Trump on his visits to Texas, joining him in Denton and now in San Antonio.
De La Cruz, the Republican candidate in a district carried by Trump by 10 points, will also address the crowd. Brother of Edinburg Rep. Monica De La Cruz and Air Force veteran, Carlos De La Cruz is running against moderate Democrat Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy. The headquarters is anchored in Bexar County, although it does not include the site of Wednesday’s rally.
In a competitive race to win the redrawn seat, De La Cruz did not hesitate to support Trump on the campaign trail. He spoke at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas and, in an interview with the Texas Tribune, called the idea that he should distance himself from the president “hogwash.”
Trump’s political operation also pumped millions into the 35th District. No Going Back PAC, which has been linked to Trump-affiliated MAGA Inc., spent $4 million on ads boosting De La Cruz and disparaging Garcia.
In a further demonstration of South Texas’ clout this fall, Vice President JD Vance was in Harlingen Wednesday with congressional candidate Eric Flores, who is running to flip the 34th Congressional District in the Rio Grande Valley.
Trump lost Bexar County every time he ran for office in Texas, but recorded his best showing in 2024, winning 44.5% of the vote there.
The lineup for next week’s rally begins at 4:30 p.m. CT, and the president is expected to address the crowd at 6 p.m.
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