Ken Paxton's Final Rally at the Alamo Is in Doubt: His Campaign Lists Monday Events in Conroe and Allen Instead
The Republican Senate nominee was to close his 'Come and Take It' bus tour at the Alamo on Monday; on Saturday his campaign's listings showed only Conroe and Allen events, the Alamo Trust said it knew of no event on the grounds, and his campaign did not answer questions about the change.
Ken Paxton's closing rally was supposed to be the Alamo. The Republican U.S. Senate nominee's 'Come and Take It' bus tour was set to end Monday, the eve of Election Day, at the San Antonio landmark the tour is named for — but on Saturday, two days before that rally would have taken place, Paxton appeared to scrap those plans, according to the Texas Tribune's account as carried this weekend. Instead, his campaign added Monday events in Conroe, set for 11 a.m., and in Allen, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at a restaurant some 300 miles from the Alamo; the only Monday events on the campaign's Eventbrite listings were Conroe and Allen, and his website listed no Monday events at all. His campaign did not immediately respond to questions about what prompted the change.
The landmark itself was never booked, the account says. The Alamo Trust, which oversees the site, told Texas Public Radio on Friday that it was unaware of any plans for Paxton to host an event on the grounds, and the Alamo's rules generally prohibit political events there. When the campaign first announced its get-out-the-vote push, it said Paxton would end the bus tour at the Alamo, drawing on the 1836 battle's symbolism for his closing message: 'When they come after Texans, Ken Paxton goes after them.'
The Alamo change caps a final push dotted with other cancellations and reschedules, including events in El Paso, Tyler, Texarkana and Mission, the account says — a pattern Democrats have labeled a 'Paxton bus tour crashout.' 'No one's going to Ken Paxton's rallies, so he's canceling them and hoping Elon Musk will buy this seat for him,' Democrat James Talarico said in a statement Friday, alluding to the more than $200 million Musk has poured into the race on Paxton's behalf, as Talarico's statement put it. Paxton is locked in a neck-and-neck race against Talarico heading into Tuesday's election; the station's final-weekend poll file (SQ-20261031-072) put Talarico ahead 49 to 47 in the Texas Southern University survey, inside its margin of error.
