Talarico and Hinojosa Make Their Final Dallas Appeal: 'This Is the Last Play of the Last Drive'

James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa made a final joint appeal to Texas voters at a rally in Dallas on Thursday night, as both Democrats face closely fought contests in the final days before the November 3 midterm election, the Dispatch Times reported. The joint event at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Centre formed part of the candidates' closing efforts to mobilise supporters before early voting ended on Friday - Talarico for the U.S. Senate against Republican Ken Paxton, Hinojosa for governor against Republican Greg Abbott. The Christian Post put the crowd at about 2,600.

Hinojosa described the final rally as 'bittersweet' after a year on the campaign trail. 'The stakes could not be higher in this fight,' she told supporters. 'If we choose to forge a new way forward together, then because we are Texas... the rest of the nation will follow.' Both candidates focused their speeches on public education, the cost of living and allegations of political corruption, the Dispatch Times reported.

Talarico framed the closing argument around the state's geography and its household budgets. 'Over the past year, I have travelled to every corner of the state, from Beaumont to El Paso, from Amarillo to Brownsville, and everywhere I go, I meet Texans who are drowning,' he said. 'We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.' He said more than $200 million was being spent by megadonors and super PACs to defeat them, and pointed, in the Christian Post's account, to more than 60,000 campaign volunteers knocking on doors and sending text messages in the final days. Hinojosa has separately challenged Abbott's office in court over access to its communications with Elon Musk; a lower court initially granted access, the Fifteenth Court of Appeals later ruled the governor was not required to comply, and Abbott's office dismissed the case as 'a sham lawsuit in a rigged district court.'

The Republicans closed the same day elsewhere. Paxton continued his own final tour on Thursday in Beaumont, on his 'Come and Take It' tour, the Dispatch Times reported, after sharing rallies with Donald Trump earlier in the week. As the final speaker in Dallas, Talarico reached for the state's shared language. 'This is the last play of the last drive, Dallas,' he said. 'This is the moment we leave it all on the field. We are the underdogs.' Democrats have not won a statewide election in Texas in more than three decades; early voting ends Friday, and Tuesday settles whether the underdogs' closing argument was a rallying cry or a result.