AUSTIN (Nexstar) — With the weeklong early voting window in the past — both incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, R, get one last chance to make their case for the Republican nomination for Cornyn’s senate seat.

An hour-and-a-half before polls closed at 7 p.m. central, the Texas Secretary of State’s office said over 575,000 Republican ballots had been cast across the Lone Star State. It’s much smaller than the first round of voting, where nearly 1.343 million votes were cast in the two-week long early voting window.

“The runoff is the day after Memorial Day,” Cornyn supporter and podcast host Garrett Fulce said. “People are closing up shop at school, they’re preparing for vacations. They’ve tuned out.”

While a large portion of Texas voters may be tuned out, the political world is locked in. Prior to the runoff, the race was already the most expensive primary in U.S. Senate history. Then on Tuesday, President Donald Trump suddenly and surprisingly endorsed Paxton — flipping the race on its head.

“I wouldn’t say the race is over because of the President’s endorsement,” Rice University Political Science professor and Texas pollster Mark P. Jones said. “But this has clearly changed the dynamics of the race, taking it from being one where Cornyn was a modest underdog to one where Cornyn’s a pretty substantial underdog and it would take a minor miracle for him to win on Tuesday.”

Cornyn still believes he has a path to victory.

“At this point nothing much else matters, except votes. Make yours count. Texas is worth fighting for,” he posted on X after the endorsement.

However, between the endorsement and the voter turnout numbers, things aren’t looking good for Cornyn. In the first round of voting — in which he finished 1.5% ahead of Paxton — 2,134,408 Republican ballots were cast.

“We’re looking at Republican (runoff) turnout somewhere in the 1-1.25 million range, potentially up to 1.5 million if there’s a big election day push,” Jones said. “Generally, the lower turnout is, the better than it is for candidates like Ken Paxton… the people who turn out to vote in these (runoffs) tend to be more conservative Republicans.”

Longtime Paxton supporters are struggling to contain their excitement.

“He’ll be above 50% on election day, no doubt about it,” Paxton supporter Tom Slocum said. “I’d imagine he’s actually somewhere around 56%-57%… maybe even higher than 60%.”

One potential silver lining for Cornyn is where people are casting their ballots. According to an analysis on Thursday evening by Gabby Birenbaum from the Texas Tribune, Harris (Cornyn +1), Dallas (Cornyn +18), Bexar (Cornyn +4) and Travis (Cornyn +24) were the only four counties with over 25,000 voters to have over 50% of their early voting turnout from March matched.

“But that doesn’t tell us who is turning out to vote in those counties,” Jones said. “Clearly if you’re Cornyn you would prefer to see higher turnout in counties where you did well, but that provides you no assurance that the people who are actually turning out are tilted more to you than to Ken Paxton.”

‘It’s going to be very difficult for me to pull the lever for him’

Entering the week, Cornyn consistently positioned himself as the candidate best equipped to beat Democratic State Rep. James Talarico, Austin, in November. If Paxton wins the nomination, his theory will be put to the test.

“We know this has been a divisive primary, there’s no doubt,” Slocum said. “We’re just as capable of coalescing and coming together for Texas.”

It’s one thing to say that thinking you’re on the winning side. For Fulce, Paxton vs. Talarico would be a tough choice.

“I’ll have to pray about it significantly because what I cannot do as a man of faith is support an active Christian brother like Ken Paxton who is openly in rebellion against God in the way that he’s handled his failing with his wife,” he said. “And there’s the element where I believe he is publicly corrupt and I do not want to entrust any more tax dollars or put any more faith into him. Without seeing something to ameliorate that, it’s going to be very difficult for me to pull the lever for him.”

Fulce noted he likely wouldn’t vote for Talarico, but would consider abstaining from the Senate race if Paxton is on the ballot.

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