By Steve Holland
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, Oct 27 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump campaigned in the traditionally solidly Republican state of Texas on Tuesday, seeking to boost US Senate candidate Ken Paxton and other party members and fend off what could be the first statewide Democratic victory in 32 years.
With high fuel prices weighing heavily on the campaign for November 3 congressional elections, Trump scheduled a pair of stops at opposite ends of the oil-producing state. He appeared before a tanker
containing Venezuelan crude in the Gulf of Mexico, and planned to announce the easing of methane rules for oil and gas producers during a later stop in the West Texas city of Lubbock.
Trump sought to show voters he was working to bring down gasoline prices a week before the midterm elections, when the balance of power in Congress will be at stake. Polls show the Democrats may retake control of one or both houses from the president's Republicans.
Trump has taken a number of steps to address fuel prices, which have become a political liability for Republicans amid the US war with Iran.
The trip marks Trump's third visit to Texas this month to mobilize support for Paxton, who is locked in a close race with Democrat James Talarico. A loss in Texas next Tuesday would complicate the Republican Party's path to retaining its slim Senate majority.
The rally took place within view of an oil tanker, moored near the Port of Corpus Christi, that Trump said was loaded with the first oil received from Venezuela under a deal that Washington made after deposing the country's former leader.
"We're celebrating the greatest oil victory in history. To the victor belongs the spoils, right?" Trump said. Texas has long been one of the main refining centers for Venezuelan crude oil.
Trump announced in August an agreement that grants the US access to a fifth of Venezuela's crude reserves. The White House said in September that oil from the deal would probably hit US reserves in November.
The oil is slated to head to refineries owned by ExxonMobil and Citgo, a White House official told Reuters.
LATE PUSH FOR PAXTON
Texas has consistently voted Republican for 30 years, but Democrats raised their hopes this year when Paxton won the Senate nomination with Trump's backing.
Paxton was indicted on securities-fraud charges in 2015 and impeached by the Texas House in 2023. The criminal case was dismissed in 2024 after an agreement with prosecutors, and the Texas Senate acquitted him in the impeachment trial.
Trump has publicly criticized his longtime ally Paxton, calling him "a pain in the ass sometimes." He also heavily criticized Talarico, whom he accused of opposing Texas values on issues such as oil production, immigration and transgender rights. Tech billionaire Elon Musk and other donors are pouring hundreds of millions into a late effort to rescue Paxton's campaign.
"Our policy has always been drill, baby, drill. And man, we are drilling now. But if Texas elects Communist James 'Talafreako,' that wealth will rapidly disappear," Trump said, applying his preferred nickname to the Democratic candidate.
Talarico has used the nickname as a fundraising tool, selling 'I'm a Talafreako' T-shirts, while also responding, "We are a threat to their corrupt system."
During a later stop in Lubbock, Trump was expected to announce an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to roll back Biden-era rules that required companies to fix leaky equipment and regularly check wells for escaping methane, a potent greenhouse gas, the White House official said. The administration is casting it as a way to produce more energy and lower costs.
The plan would give relief to small, low-output wells and end a program that used outside groups to report large methane leaks, the official said. It would also ease rules aimed at phasing out the routine burning off of gas at oil wells.
Trump's repeated trips to Texas are part of a broader push in Republican-leaning states, which were expected to be safely in hand but have instead become midterm battlegrounds. His October campaign blitz has also taken him to Oklahoma, Alabama, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina and Mississippi.
(Reporting by Steve Holland in Corpus Christi, Texas; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Deepa Babington and Jonathan Spicer )
