James Talarico rallies in Del Rio with Val Verde County attorney

Val Verde County Attorney David Martinez introduced James Talarico to a crowd of local Democrats in Del Rio, putting the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate on a stage with one of the county’s own elected officials. The July 15 rally gave Talarico a visible foothold in a border county where turnout and party organization can matter as much as the speech itself.

For Val Verde County Democrats, the event looked less like a routine candidate stop than a local organizing test. Martinez’s role signaled that the campaign was reaching beyond mailers and statewide television advertising and into the county’s own political network, with Del Rio serving as a place to show public support, recruit energy and make the race feel immediate to border voters.

Talarico had already been leaning into border issues before he came to Del Rio. On July 13, he unveiled a border security plan and criticized Biden policies and Trump’s Big Bend wall. A day later, he was in Laredo as part of his self-described Frontera Tour, a run through border communities that made clear he was trying to build a South Texas message around the border, not just around Austin or the state’s major metro areas.

That context gives the Del Rio rally added weight for local voters watching how statewide candidates talk about the region. Del Rio and Val Verde County sit at the intersection of border policy, public safety, water, infrastructure and the relationship between state and local government, and a stop here forces a candidate to show whether those concerns are being addressed in concrete terms or folded into broader campaign rhetoric.

Martinez’s introduction also pointed to something Democrats in Val Verde County have been trying to show for years: that the county can still matter in a statewide race when a campaign is willing to meet voters here in person. The Del Rio appearance suggested Talarico’s campaign wanted border communities to see themselves as part of the coalition he is trying to assemble ahead of the election, not as a political afterthought.