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Needing a Trump Boost
Even as Donald Trump campaigns for the White House, the former president has held rallies in non-swing states like Montana, Colorado and California to help other GOP candidates.
Earlier this month, Trump was in Houston for nearly three days and just blocks from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, yet the one-time rivals held no public events together as they did in 2018 when Trump held a get-out-the-vote rally for Cruz at the start of early voting.
During an interview on Saturday, Cruz said they still have a great relationship and chalked up the absence to Trump having his own race to worry about. He said he saw Trump at a private fundraiser in Houston in early October and on Monday they had a tele-town hall type meeting where callers heard Trump tout Cruz for about seven minutes.
"When Trump was president last time, I was his strongest ally in the U.S. Senate," Cruz said as he hustled from a rally in New Braunfels to another in Boerne on Saturday. "And if and when he is reelected, I will again be his strongest ally in the Senate."
Cruz says he "absolutely" could use Trump's help to get out the vote as he battles Democrat Colin Allred in a race that public polls have shown Cruz leading by as little as 1 percentage point.
While Trump has struggled with suburban voters in Texas, political experts say Trump still drives out GOP primary voters like few other politicians.
"He definitely helps Cruz more than he would hurt him if he campaigns here," said Billy Monroe, a political science professor at Prairie View A&M University.
More here on the dynamics between Cruz and Trump.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
Up: Texas Voters.
The state has already seen more than 1 million votes cast for the presidential election. Data from the Texas Division of Elections show 843,000 people have voted in person and another 163,000 had mail-in ballots returned already. In-person early voting runs through Nov. 1. Friday is the last day to request a vote-by-mail ballot.
Down: Texas House.
While they succeeded in delaying Robert Roberson's execution, they have so far been unsuccessful in getting him to testify before their committee. Rep. Joe Moody, chairman of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, said on Tuesday they are still trying to get Roberson to testify, but couldn't say when that would happen. Roberson was condemned in 2002 for the death of his 2-year-old daughter. The murder conviction was tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, a theory that critics now call "junk science."
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What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Brett Coomer/Staff photographer
Vice President Kamala Harris is coming back to Houston for a campaign rally on Friday as the first week of in-person early voting wraps up. It's been a long time since a Democratic Presidential candidate has campaigned in Texas this close to Election Day. In 1992, then-Gov. Bill Clinton held a rally in Houston 6 days before Election Day. Clinton lost Texas to George H.W. Bush but won the White House.
What else I'm reading
Border crossing numbers along the entire U.S. border with Mexico continue to drop. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 101,790 encounters with migrants - the lowest amount for a month since President Biden took office in 2021. The Border Report has more on how deportations have also increased.
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