Talarico and Hinojosa Share a Dallas Stage for the Final Push: 'This Is the Last Play of the Last Drive'
On the last night before early voting ends, the Democrats' Senate and governor nominees rallied together in Dallas - one calling the moment bittersweet, the other closing with a football metaphor and an underdog claim.
DALLAS - James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa brought their campaigns onto one stage in Dallas on Thursday night, rallying supporters together as both face tight races five days before the election. Polling shows Talarico holding a narrow lead over Republican Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race, while Hinojosa polls slightly behind Gov. Greg Abbott - and a win for either would end a Democratic statewide losing streak in Texas of more than three decades.
Hinojosa, who called the night 'bittersweet' after a year on the campaign trail, framed the stakes plainly. 'The stakes could not be higher in this fight,' she said. 'If we choose to forge a new way forward together, then because we are Texas, the rest of the nation will follow.' Both candidates worked the same themes through the night: public education, families hurting financially, and corruption.
Talarico tied those themes into one sentence. 'Over the past year, I have traveled to every corner of the state, from Beaumont to El Paso, from Amarillo to Brownsville, and everywhere I go, I meet Texans who are drowning,' he said. 'We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.' Both campaigns aimed at billionaire influence - Talarico said 'the billionaire megadonors and their super PACs are spending more than $200 million to try to stop us,' and FOX 4 cited Texas Tribune reporting that campaign finance filings show Elon Musk poured nearly $190 million into the Senate race. Hinojosa pressed her lawsuit over communications between Abbott's office and Musk - a lower court briefly granted access before the Fifteenth Court of Appeals ruled the governor does not have to comply; 'I think Greg Abbott's embarrassed that those emails are going to show he sold us out,' she said Thursday. The governor's office has previously called the litigation 'a sham lawsuit in a rigged district court.'
Talarico, the last speaker, closed on turnout. 'This is the last play of the last drive, Dallas. This is the moment we leave it all on the field. We are the underdogs,' he told the crowd, urging Texans to vote on November 3. Across the state the same night, Paxton was in Beaumont on his Come and Take It tour. Early voting ends today, Friday, October 30; Election Day is Tuesday, with polls closing at 7 p.m.
