Candidates Flood San Antonio in the Final Stretch: Jeffries on the East Side, a Full House for Talarico, and Paxton at the Alamo Next
With eight days left, San Antonio became a campaign crossroads this weekend — a House leader in East Side churches, 1,800 people at Sunset Station, a barbecue rally its hosts disowned, and two closing stops still to come.
San Antonio became a campaign crossroads over the weekend, as candidates in the state's tight races worked the city in the final stretch before the Nov. 3 election. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries came to the East Side on Sunday to stump for Johnny Garcia, the Democratic former Bexar County sheriff's deputy running in Texas' 35th Congressional District, attending services at two East Side Baptist churches. "That's why I'm so thankful that Johnny Garcia made the decision to run, to step up to present himself, recognizing that we can't afford another two years of things going the way they've been going," Jeffries told one congregation, in the San Antonio Current's account.
On Saturday, about 1,800 people packed into Sunset Station to hear Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, with a few hundred more listening outside after the venue reached capacity, the Current reported. His Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, rallied the same day before a couple of hundred people at Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que in New Braunfels — after which the restaurant's ownership posted that it had no prior knowledge of the rally and did not endorse it: "We are not in the business of endorsing candidates," the owners wrote, calling it "the action of a rogue employee."
The lieutenant governor's race drew its own San Antonio crowd on Sunday, when at least 40 cannabis enthusiasts lined up at the Kingpin Kush smoke shop on Loop 410 to meet Democratic candidate Vikki Goodwin. Shop owner William Hunter, who said he has used his stores to register 4,500 people to vote this cycle, handed Goodwin's campaign a check before she left for another stop in Austin. UT-San Antonio political scientist Jon Taylor told the Current that both parties' targeting shows how much South Texas now matters — and cautioned Democrats against chasing a "blue mirage" if rally energy does not become turnout.
The San Antonio swing is not finished. Talarico returns on Sunday, Nov. 1, for a rally at the Espee in St. Paul Square, and Paxton closes his statewide "Come and Take It" tour at the Alamo on Monday, Nov. 2. Early voting continues through Friday, Oct. 30, with polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Bexar County; Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
