Trump won this reliably red state by double digits. Now a deadlocked race is bringing him back

Texas, a state Donald Trump won by nearly 14 percentage points two years ago, has become an unexpectedly tight Senate battleground, and the president is returning to help his party's nominee. Trump plans stops in Corpus Christi and Lubbock on Tuesday with Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, as early voting continues and the midterms approach, according to Fox News.

A Fox News survey of likely voters has Paxton and Democratic State Rep. James Talarico level at 49% each. A month earlier the same polling gave Talarico a 51%-49% advantage. The seat opens because Sen. John Cornyn is retiring; Paxton beat Cornyn in a bitter Republican primary that required a runoff. Talarico, a former public school teacher, is trying to end a Democratic drought in statewide Texas contests that has lasted more than 30 years.

This will be Trump's fourth trip to Texas since Labor Day. He spent two days in Dallas in early September for the party's first midterm convention, appeared at the Peterbilt plant in Denton on Oct. 1, and joined Paxton at a San Antonio rally six days afterward. The Texas contest is one of about a dozen that will decide whether Republicans keep their narrow Senate majority.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →