Three of the four presidential candidates from both parties criss-crossed the Dallas area over the past few days, leading up to today’s presidential primaries. Today’s voting culminates three weeks of intense campaigning across Texas as both parties’ nominations could be determined by the outcomes.
Hillary Clinton had North Texas to herself on Saturday as she hosted events in Fort Worth and Dallas. An estimated crowd of 8,000 people jammed the historic stockyards to hear the candidate speak at a morning rally. She then traveled east on I-30 for an afternoon event at the Fair Park Coliseum. More than 6,000 showed up for Clinton’s final event in the area before the primary.
Clinton invoked her most recent ad, in which voters are asked who they trust more to answer the phone at 3 a.m. to make decisions for the nation. She also rejected claims from the camp of rival Sen. Barack Obama that the ad was designed to frighten voters.
“I don’t think the people in Texas scare all that easily,” she said. Clinton continued to push the issue with the crowd. “Sen. Obama doesn’t want to debate me about national security,” Clinton said. “How’s he going to debate Sen. McCain about national security?”
The 3 a.m. ad, launched on Friday, was part of the Clinton campaign’s closing argument. It is meant to get voters to the polls while also reminding them of Clinton’s long public service – a distinction the campaign has been trying to make with Obama.
While Clinton was tough on the stump, she flew from Dallas to New York to appear that night on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” She has been on a whirlwind tour of appearances since then, bouncing between Texas and Ohio.
Monday night she came back to Texas to host a statewide town hall meeting that aired on Fox Sports Southwest. The campaign purchased the airtime, the biggest purchase of this kind in the network’s history.
The SMU College Republicans hosted presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday as a part of his final campaign push. A crowd of a little more than 100 people were in the Hughes-Trigg Ballroom for the 8 a.m. event.
When asked about the “mathematical impossibility” of his campaign winning, Huckabee told the crowd to “Remember the New York Giants.”
Huckabee has around 250 Republican delegates while rival John McCain has more than 1,000. The candidate said that if McCain doesn’t manage to break the 1,191 delegate count before the Republican National Convention takes place in September, he could theoretically upset McCain in superdelegate votes. However, Huckabee stated that this plan rested largely on one major goal.
“It ain’t over…until Texas says it’s over!” Huckabee shouted to crowds cheering “We like Mike! We like Mike!” Accompanying Huckabee were his wife Janet, and actor Chuck Norris and his wife Gena. “I shaved my beard because when Mike Huckabee wins Texas, we’re going on vacation Wednesday morning and I want to have a big smile on my face because Mike Huckabee will have just won Texas,” Norris said.
SMU’s Victory Ministries also held a prayer rally for Huckabee at 7 a.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Theater, before his arrival on campus.
Obama, meanwhile, came back to the Dallas area midday Monday for an invitation-only town hall at Newman Smith High School in Carrollton. He talked to the high schoolers about topics ranging from future jobs to hip-hop music.
He will spend election day in the state and host a watch party Tuesday night in San Antonio. McCain, who as the presumptive nominee has spent little time campaigning, spent time over the weekend in his home state of Arizona before coming back to Texas on Monday. His biggest event was a forum in Waco, with around 400 people attending.
McCain will host his election night rally at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Dallas. The Secretary of State is predicting record turnout for Tuesday’s elections. The office predicted that 3.3 million will cast ballots in the primaries, which would break the current record of 2.7 million from the 1988 presidential primaries.