For a fleeting moment Monday night, James Talarico and Ken Paxton were perhaps as close as they ever will be physically in their fight for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.
They were in the same city (Fort Worth), at least, on the same day (the first day of early voting in Texas), delivering speeches at almost the same evening hour, an inadvertent alignment of two campaign tours engaged in a dash to Election Day.
It was no coincidence that they chose Tarrant County for their rallies on the day that voters began casting ballots across Texas. Fort Worth and its surrounding suburbs have become a crucial political battleground. For Republicans in Texas, the contest — for Tarrant County, and therefore Texas, and, Republicans would argue, the future of conservative America — has increasingly been framed as existential.
“This isn’t red versus blue,” Mr. Paxton said to a crowd of more than 200 people seated, along with dozens along a wall, as part of a speech he’s honed for weeks. “It’s the America our founders gave us versus something they would never recognize.”
“Fort Worth, you are my slingshot,” Mr. Talarico told his crowd of more than 1,000 supporters who packed a high school gymnasium, likening them to the biblical David in his successful clash with the more powerful Goliath.
Democrats will likely need to carry the area handily if they are to win the U.S. Senate race. Republicans are eager to hold onto the county, the last large urban area they control in Texas.
Republicans were shaken earlier this year when a Democratic union machinist, Taylor Rehmet, won a special election for a State Senate seat in what had been a solidly Republican area of the county.
Tarrant County has long been a battleground, favoring President Trump in 2016, narrowly backing the Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke in 2018 for U.S. Senate and Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 before supporting Mr. Trump once again in 2024. But Mr. Rehmet’s win suggested that Democrats were making inroads into the suburbs, and prompted some apparent campaign changes.
“My opponent has done a complete 180, co-opted some of my messaging about working families,” Mr. Rehmet, now a state senator running for re-election, said in an interview from his campaign office. “She even changed the color of her signs to blue.”
That opponent, Leigh Wambsganss, no longer has a photo of Mr. Trump on her website and is no longer referring to herself as “ultra MAGA.”
Blue lawn signs were visible all around Tarrant County this week, including those supporting Ms. Wambsganss, Gov. Greg Abbott and the county’s top executive, Tim O’Hare.
“I don’t think Taylor Rehmet owns a patent on the hottest political topic of the year or the color blue,” Ms. Wambsganss said, referring to the affordability issue. (Mr. Rehmet’s signs are mostly orange.)
On Monday evening, Mr. Paxton, who has appeared with Mr. Trump repeatedly during the president’s recent visits to Texas, motored into Fort Worth in his dark blue and red campaign bus, the words “Endorsed by Trump” written on the back.
Mr. Paxton basked in the rapturous applause of conservatives under the soaring ceilings and Art Deco chandeliers of a former train station waiting room. A full bar served free drinks. Among those cheering were a few supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement who had come for the opening act: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mr. Kennedy, who said he could not officially offer an endorsement, instead provided a unique sort of praise for the way Mr. Paxton used his power as the Texas attorney general.
“He was willing to use that power with the same kind of recklessness that President Donald Trump has,” Mr. Kennedy said, in order to “challenge official orthodoxies and vested interests.”
Also praising Mr. Paxton, and issuing warnings about Mr. Talarico, were hard-right figures like the state comptroller, Don Huffines — “We’ve never run against the Community Party before,” he said — and the conservative commentator Sara Gonzales.
“Are you too dumb to see James Talarico for who he is?” Ms. Gonzales asked.
“No!” the crowd shouted back.
Mr. Paxton read his speech from a teleprompter in a low-key tone, rarely raising his voice. He promised an assortment of tax breaks to address the rising cost of living, compared Mr. Talarico to Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York and warned that a vote for Mr. Talarico would be “a vote for Chuck Schumer,” the Democratic senator and minority leader from New York.
“When Republicans vote, we win,” he said, standing at a lectern emblazoned with the words “Ken Paxton Goes After Them.”
Kent Hagood, a 71-year-old with a flowing white beard who works as a Santa Claus during the holidays, liked what he heard.
“I’m hopeful that the polls undervalue the Republican vote,” he said, adding that he was “an example of that” because he does not agree to participate in polls when contacted.
About a 15-minute drive across Cowtown, in southern Fort Worth, Mr. Talarico, who also used a teleprompter, struck a tone that was less “us versus them” than “we’re all in this together” — except for “the billionaires,” who he said had “rigged” the system with the help of politicians like Mr. Paxton.
“This election shouldn’t be about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It’s bigger than that,” Mr. Talarico said, echoing a bipartisan message he has deployed throughout his career as a state legislator. “This election should be about chasing a vision of what our state can be.”
He also borrowed a line from the popular Texas high school football drama “Friday Night Lights.”
“As every Texan knows,” Mr. Talarico said, putting himself in the position of the show’s coach. “Clear eyes, full hearts.”
The crowd shouted back, as if players on the fictional team: “Can’t lose!”
More than 1,000 of Mr. Talarico’s supporters sat on bleachers in the gym of North Crowley High School, where there was, as might be expected, no bar. But the crowd still buzzed with a sense of excitement that Mr. Talarico could wrest control of Tarrant County away from Republicans and maybe even deliver the state for Democrats, something that hasn’t happened in three decades.
“I’m hopeful,” Jessica Romo, 36, who works at a cannabis dispensary in Fort Worth, said. “It’s a big crowd.”
Over the summer, the Tarrant County commissioner’s court, led by Republicans, reduced the number of Election Day polling locations by about a third, removing sites including one at the University of Texas at Arlington. The county leaders said it was a cost-saving measure. Democrats said the move would mostly affect Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, which have favored the party.
But some predicted the decision would backfire.
“He’s really energized the base,” said State Representative Ramon Romero Jr., a Fort Worth Democrat, referring to Mr. O’Hare, the Republican Tarrant County executive. “They know that this is a clear attack.”
Addressing the Talarico rally, Alisa Simmons, a Democratic county commissioner who is running against Mr. O’Hare, said she saw positive signs in the large early voter turnout in Tarrant County.
“When we organize, we win,” Ms. Simmons said, “and Tarrant County is proving it right now.”
Those who spoke before Mr. Talarico were all Democrats running for office, except for Todd Smith, a former Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives. Mr. Smith said that one reason for his support for Mr. Talarico was his faith. Mr. Talarico, who has studied at a seminary in Austin, has made his progressive Christianity a centerpiece of his campaign.
“James Talarico has a deep and informed and sincere faith,” Mr. Smith said, “which ensures a value system that will not allow him to lie and cheat and steal.”
Across town, at the Paxton rally, Republicans dismissed and attacked that faith, repeating several times a quote from Mr. Talarico that he saw himself as “a Christian who hates Christianity.” (Mr. Talarico, in the same podcast conversation, had expressed admiration for Jesus’s teachings and opposition to the use of theology to support conservative Republican ideas.)
“How many people do you even know who are Christians and say they hate Christianity?” Mr. Paxton asked.
“None!” one person called out.
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