The presidential race involves Texas on Friday with dueling Harris and Trump marketing campaign visits

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The presidential race involves Texas on Friday, when each Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are holding rallies and boosting their occasion’s senate candidates.

Harris will ship remarks at a rally in Houston, the place she’ll concentrate on abortion and ladies’s well being and flex her star energy assist with a efficiency by Beyoncé, in response to media studies. Simply hours earlier than, Trump will communicate to reporters at a non-public jet terminal in Austin on the border and crime. He is reported to look on widespread podcaster Joe Rogan’s present throughout a taping in Austin and at a rally in Houston at Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale’s retailer.

With simply 11 days till Election Day, it’s sudden that the presidential candidates would spend their valuable time in Texas, particularly after the Harris marketing campaign made it clear Texas was not seen as a battleground state.

Nevertheless, each events contend the Senate race shall be way more aggressive, with U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas difficult Sen. Ted Cruz in his second reelection bid. Each Allred and Cruz shall be with their events’ candidates throughout their Friday visits to Texas.

Will probably be Allred’s first time campaigning aspect by aspect with Harris this cycle. Allred has been immune to tying his marketing campaign to Harris’ apart from a short look on the primary stage on the Democratic Nationwide Conference the place he expressed his assist for her. He’ll be part of Harris on stage on Friday discussing abortion entry.

Trump stumped for Cruz throughout his closer-than-expected reelection marketing campaign in 2018, displaying unity after the 2 engaged in an unsightly presidential major solely two years prior. The pair spoke collectively throughout a fundraiser earlier this month. Cruz additionally spoke on the primary stage of the Republican Nationwide Conference this 12 months, praising Trump for his dealing with of the border.

Texas additionally supplies a key stage to broadcast messages about two of essentially the most distinguished problems with the presidential race: abortion and the border.

Democrats have zeroed in on the overturning of nationwide abortion entry all through the marketing campaign, and polling has repeatedly proven it a compelling challenge amongst voters who establish with each events. Kate Cox and Amanda Zurawski, Texas ladies whose look after health-compromising being pregnant problems have been delayed as a result of state’s restrictive abortion legal guidelines, have been a number of the Harris marketing campaign’s most distinguished surrogates.

“Texas has had the most horror stories nationwide,” stated Mimi Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All and a Houstonian who shall be attending the rally. “Coming to Texas and bringing the fight directly to Texas allows the vice president to make her case to the American people.”

Trump’s remarks on the border will lean into what have been a pillar of Republican assaults on Democrats because the starting of President Joe Biden’s time in workplace. Texas has additionally been a key battleground in Republican resistance to the Biden administration’s dealing with of the southern border. Gov. Greg Abbott has gone face to face with the administration and different Democratic leaders with Operation Lone Star, which used state sources to implement bodily obstacles alongside the border and bused migrants to liberal cities farther north.

“Kamala’s border bloodbath is putting Texas families in danger and exposing every American to the risks of her dangerous policies,” Trump’s marketing campaign stated in an announcement. “The only leader who will secure our borders and put Americans first is President Donald J. Trump. The stakes have never been higher.”

Trump’s look on Rogan’s present comes as candidates shift towards much less standard platforms to succeed in voters who could also be disillusioned with conventional information media. Rogan’s podcast is among the many hottest within the nation, with over 14 million followers, in response to Spotify knowledge revealed in March.

Harris made an look earlier this month on Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy.” The podcast is the second hottest on Spotify, behind “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

Beyoncé’s look at Harris’ rally shall be one in every of her most distinguished forays into formal politics. The Houston native has beforehand used her celeb to focus on points starting from ladies’s rights to racial justice, and he or she is famously near and supportive of former President Barack Obama. Her tune “Freedom” has been an anthem of the Harris marketing campaign, and the DNC was gripped with rumors that she would make a shock look on the Chicago stage. She didn’t.