Why Trump Is Taking Three Football Names to Texas in the Final Week Before the Midterms

President Donald Trump will campaign in Texas on Tuesday alongside three well-known football figures, Axios reported, as Republicans try to get their voters to the polls in the last week before the midterm elections. The goal, according to the outlet, is to reach lower-propensity voters who helped put Trump back in the White House in 2024 but who may be less motivated when he is not on the ballot.

The appearances, planned for Lubbock and Corpus Christi, bring former college stars Johnny Manziel and Colt McCoy and two-time Super Bowl champion Danny Amendola onto the campaign trail in a state where the sport has an enormous following.

The numbers behind the Texas stops

• Three football figures. Manziel won the Heisman Trophy at Texas A&M, McCoy was a standout quarterback at the University of Texas, and Amendola starred at Texas Tech in Lubbock.
• Two Texas cities. The campaign appearances are set for Lubbock and Corpus Christi.
• 14 points. That is how far Trump won men under 30 in 2024, according to a Tufts University analysis cited by Axios.
• 26 points. A Harvard Youth Poll released last week found Democrats ahead of Republicans by that margin among young men who say they will definitely vote in November, Axios reported.

Why football, and why now

Axios described football as a way for Republicans to speak to younger men, a group that helped power Trump’s 2024 victory and that the party is struggling to energize this year. The gap between the two polling figures above shows the challenge: a group Trump carried by a wide margin in 2024 now leans heavily toward Democrats among those most certain to vote, at least in that one survey.

The Texas trip is not a one-off. Axios said Trump has made the sport a regular feature of recent campaign stops. He attended the Texas-Tennessee game in September and had planned to go to the Georgia-Alabama game earlier this month before canceling because of a hurricane. Former NFL coach Jon Gruden appeared with him at an Ohio rally this month, and former Georgia and NFL star Todd Gurley joined him at a stop in Georgia. Vice President Vance, described as a lifelong Cincinnati Bengals fan, visited the team’s practice facility last week while campaigning in Ohio.

Republicans are also spending millions of dollars on advertising during NFL and college football games, according to Axios.

What it means for voters

For Texans in the two cities, the visits mean high-profile campaign events in the final days of early campaigning. More broadly, the strategy shows where both parties think the midterm outcome could turn: on whether less-frequent voters, particularly younger men, bother to cast a ballot when the president’s name is not on it.

One adviser told Axios that Trump has many bases and that football, college and pro, is one of them. The adviser said the response has been good and that the president enjoys the atmosphere.

Whether the star power changes turnout is not something the polling cited by Axios can answer. The Tufts and Harvard numbers measure different things, the first how young men voted in 2024 and the second how those who say they are certain to vote lean now, so they are not a direct before-and-after comparison.

What happens next

The Lubbock and Corpus Christi events are set for Tuesday, a week before the election. Axios did not report additional appearances in this stretch, though it noted that football has been a recurring part of Trump’s stops in recent weeks.

Around Prague, based on reporting by Axios