Election Day is just a week away, and political campaigns are racing toward the finish line. For Republicans in Texas, that means bringing out their party's biggest figure: President Donald Trump.
Trump will make stops in Corpus Christi and Lubbock on Tuesday, while Vice President JD Vance plans to visit Weatherford on Thursday. The visits are aimed at rallying support for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in his U.S. Senate race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.
"They're pulling out all the stops to come here and fight to try to keep that Senate seat," Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston, told The Texas Newsroom.
The outcome of Texas' Senate race could determine which party holds control of the chamber in Washington for the final two years of Trump's term — a major factor in whether the president will be able to advance his agenda.
Recent polling underscores how competitive the Texas race has become.
An October Emerson College/Nexstar Media poll put Talarico at 48% and Paxton at 46%, too close to establish a clear leader. A separate Rasmussen Reports survey found the candidates tied.
A Talarico victory would give Texas its first Democratic U.S. Senate election winner since 1988, and end the party's more than 30-year statewide losing streak.
Sims says the visits are telling in a state long considered reliably Republican.
"Ken Paxton himself is just not a gregarious, appealing candidate, and hasn't generated that level of excitement with voters. So they're coming down to try and bolster that for him," Sims said.
Beyond the U.S. Senate race, Trump's two Texas stops highlight different challenges Republicans are facing this election year: getting their base to the polls and holding on to recent gains in South Texas.
Corpus Christi: Holding Latino support
In Corpus Christi, the GOP isn't just looking to excite voters for Texas' U.S. Senate race. The region's congressional contests are also pivotal for the party.
That includes Texas 15th, 28th and 34th Congressional Districts, where polling shows close races.
Trump narrowly won majority-Latino Nueces County in 2016 and 2020. But that support exploded during the 2024 election, when Trump won Nueces County by double digits for the first time.
According to Del Mar College political science professor Dr. Paul Gottemoller, the president's visit highlights the importance of Latino voters for Republicans' overall success.
"There was a hope that the 2024 election results signified a permanent partisan shift among Latino voters in South Texas," said Gottemoller.
In fact, it's that repositioning by the area's Latino voters that partly inspired Republicans mid-decade redistricting effort last summer.
"They redrew the maps in hopes of getting five additional Republican districts out of that," said Gottemoller.
However, now polls show "that it was not a permanent shift" and Gottemoller said votes from South Texas Latinos are still very much up for grabs.
Trump's visit to Corpus Christi will be his second this year. He also visited before March's primaries to promote Republican candidates.
Lubbock: Rallying the base
This will be Donald Trump's first-ever public visit to Lubbock since beginning his political career. Even in his own campaigns for President, the Plains and Panhandle regions of West Texas were often considered a guaranteed win for the GOP — assumptions that have been repeatedly confirmed.
Trump saw more than 66% of the vote in Lubbock County in 2016, and almost 70% in 2024.
So, why now?
According to Drew Landry, a government professor from South Plains College, it comes down to Paxton's U.S. Senate candidacy.
"What that tells me is that even they think this is going to be a very close election," Landry said, an indication that "Paxton is in trouble of being one of the first Republicans to lose statewide since 1994."
For the last 30 years, Lubbock County has been the textbook example of a place that Republicans could count on for consistent party-line votes. But that hasn't always been true for Paxton himself. In his primary races for Attorney General, Paxton has often seen less support from Lubbock voters compared to other statewide Republican candidates.
That's exactly what happened in March's primary, when sitting Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn won Lubbock County. But Paxton managed to turn it around, securing the majority of Republicans' votes in the county in May's runoff.
"What's carrying [Paxton] is the Republican name, and among Republicans, his tie to the president," Landry explained.
The bottom line: "The President is coming to a place where his base is large, to gin up support," said Landry.
While he doesn't expect any of the region's traditionally red seats to flip this year, Landry said he's expecting closer races than many West Texas Democrats have ever seen.
The Texas Newsroom is a public radio journalism collaboration that includes NPR, KERA in North Texas, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio in San Antonio and other stations across the state.