{"id":300202,"date":"2026-05-19T20:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/300202\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T20:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:18:08","slug":"trump-backs-paxton-over-cornyn-for-texas-senator-in-shock-endorsement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/300202\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump backs Paxton over Cornyn for Texas senator in shock endorsement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">US President Donald Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state\u2019s Republican Senate primary shortly after early voting began in an increasingly personal and expensive run-off against incumbent Senator John Cornyn.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cKen Paxton has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next United States Senator from the Great State of Texas \u2013 KEN PAXTON WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!,\u201d Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The timing of the move came as a shock, with early voting already under way. It\u2019s also likely to rankle many Republican leaders in Texas and on Capitol Hill who had backed Cornyn, a four-term senator once seen as a potential majority leader.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">After trailing Paxton in the polls for much of last year, Cornyn rallied to lead the March 3 primary vote, garnering about 42 per cent while Paxton got almost 41 per cent.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cIt\u2019s his decision,\u201d a grim-faced Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a key Cornyn ally, said when asked of the endorsement.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"US Senator John Cornyn speaks to the media in Austin, Texas, in March. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0f60307f-511c-40bd-9234-cc6a3b1d842c_c2cda58a.jpg\" title=\"US Senator John Cornyn speaks to the media in Austin, Texas, in March. Photo: AP\"\/>US Senator John Cornyn speaks to the media in Austin, Texas, in March. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Trump\u2019s endorsement is seen as critical in Texas, a state the president won by nearly 14 percentage points in 2024. Democrats, sensing opportunity as Trump\u2019s approval ratings sag, are targeting the Lone Star state as part of an uphill battle to gain control of the US Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state\u2019s Republican Senate primary shortly after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,145,2135,3309,1967,20114,39580,13602,61313],"class_list":["post-300202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-james-talarico","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-midterms","tag-primary","tag-texas-senate-race","tag-trump-endorsement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}