Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
On Saturday, I was in Houston, Texas, for Lincoln Square Media covering one of the final rallies for Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico before his stunning victory Tuesday night.
My media career has never been about politics. Rather, as a 25-year veteran of the FBI, I now take my observation and assessment skills and apply them to security risks, threats, and predictive analysis for a mass audience. This column isn’t so much about Talarico but about the charismatic candidate’s crowd and what I observed from spending hours speaking with them, watching and learning. I’m here to report that regardless of election outcomes, I’m more confident than ever that the Trump regime’s threat to our democracy will be defeated.
Here’s what I saw Saturday that should give us all hope.
First, the crowd was large – about 2,000 people who filled most of the floor space and almost the entire balcony in a popular indoor concert venue. Talarico’s rally attendance trended upward during his campaign, in contrast to what happened at Trump’s GOP rallies across the country. Trump’s mind-numbing MAGA meet-ups were held in increasingly smaller venues – including high school gyms, to avoid the growing embarrassment of a sitting president looking out at empty seats. Talarico’s consistent crowd size, while impressive for a Democrat in a deep red state, wasn’t even one of my most significant takeaways.
Second, the crowd was energized. As folks stood in a line around the block waiting for the venue doors to swing open, I interviewed some of them on camera. Many came in groups with family members, friends and neighbors – the kinds of communities that encourage each other to vote, often together.