<\/p>\n
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks to supporters at a campaign event in McKinney, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
LM Otero\/AP Photo\/LM Otero<\/p>\n
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Annie Rice\/AP Photo\/Annie Rice<\/p>\n
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks to supporters at a campaign event in McKinney, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
LM Otero\/AP Photo\/LM Otero<\/p>\n
Supporters holds a Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, sign during his campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Annie Rice\/AP Photo\/Annie Rice<\/p>\n
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, listens to State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, during a campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Annie Rice\/AP Photo\/Annie Rice<\/p>\n
DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas (AP) \u2014 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is riding high as he heads into the final days of his Republican primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn, now with the weight of the president\u2019s backing behind him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t know if y’all noticed this, but Donald Trump endorsed me,\u201d Paxton told a small rally in a town outside Austin, inciting whoops and applause from the crowd.<\/p>\n
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Tuesday’s election has drawn national attention and gobs of money. It’s also become the latest contest in which Trump is encouraging voters to boot a politician who have displeased him \u2014 in this case, Cornyn \u2014 in favor of a challenger more aligned with the president. That effort has been largely successful for Trump. Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie lost his Kentucky primary against Ed Gallrein, whom Trump had handpicked and backed. He also has defeated incumbents in Louisiana and Indiana.<\/p>\n
Paxton has been turning his focus to the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico. Paxton opened his event Thursday with attacks on Talarico, a sign of his confidence heading into Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Paxton then gave a biography of his political life, and tried hammering home the reason he says he should be the Republican nominee: He’s unleashed a barrage of lawsuits defending conservative values for years. It’s the type of resume that endears Paxton to the Make America Great Again faithful, some of his supporters said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a fighter, he\u2019s a person of action, he\u2019s proven that as attorney general,\u201d said Jeffrey Sonnier, 72, who attended the rally and echoed what many supporters there voiced.<\/p>\n
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As for Cornyn, said Sonnier, \u201che\u2019s inactive for five years and digs out to become a supposed active Republican MAGA person every six years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who is closer to Trump?<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s campaign said Thursday that it’s pulling negative ads against Cornyn. Instead, starting after Trump’s Tuesday endorsement, the campaign and a super PAC that supports his candidacy began airing separate ads touting Trump’s favor.<\/p>\n
Cornyn\u2019s campaign and groups supporting him, however, were outspending the pro-Paxton groups three-to-one, and had reprised an ad they began airing last year noting Cornyn\u2019s support for Trump\u2019s agenda and featuring video clips of Trump praising Cornyn.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe’s called me a friend, and that’s no surprise because I’ve supported him and his policies, you may have seen a commercial or two to that effect, 99.3% of the time,\u201d said Cornyn in a video posted to X from a recent event.<\/p>\n
Cornyn has also long worked to shift the race to focus not on fidelity to the president but on character.<\/p>\n
The campaign has leaned heavily into messaging about Paxton’s past, which includes an alleged affair and an impeachment for corruption in which Paxton was acquitted.<\/p>\n
If Paxton is the nominee, that will be litigated in a general election against Talarico, where voters will be less \u201cwilling to overlook all the corruption, the self-dealing and the scandals,\u201d Cornyn argued at a recent campaign event. \u201cKen Paxton would hand it to (Democrats) on a silver platter.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Paxton supporters at his Thursday rally shrugged off the accusations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had his flaws, but so have we; we all make mistakes,\u201d said Daniel Vega, 18, adding, \u201cHe\u2019s repented, let\u2019s move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
A contest where spending reached beyond $100 million<\/p>\n
Through this week, Cornyn\u2019s campaign and groups supporting it will have spent roughly $90 million in advertising, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, including more than $20 million since the March 3 primary election.<\/p>\n
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Paxton\u2019s campaign and the single super PAC have combined to spend roughly $10.5 million on advertising, with roughly $6.1 million since the March 3 primary.<\/p>\n
The ads have flooded voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commercials are leading me against Paxton, that he might be a little crooked,\u201d said Gail Licea, 74, a retired registered nurse, who attended a Cornyn event before Trump\u2019s endorsement. Then again, she said, \u201cI\u2019ve been led to believe that sometimes John Cornyn doesn\u2019t back President Donald Trump, and that concerns me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The advertising has been so concentrated, it was unclear how much the late pivot by the groups would affect Tuesday\u2019s outcome, said Wayne Hamilton, former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is so much noise out there right now,\u201d said Hamilton, who is an adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott and is unaffiliated with either of the Senate candidates. \u201cI don\u2019t know how any one message is going to break through.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks to supporters at a campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[145,103759,110280,392,2135,110281,3309,1967,168,170,169,110279,23681,59373,59370,59371,59372,61260,61261,61262,27,71657,110286,54319],"class_list":["post-304432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-donald-trump","tag-ed-gallrein","tag-gail-licea","tag-greg-abbott","tag-james-talarico","tag-jeffrey-sonnier","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-mario-daniel-vega","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30109-ap-texas-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32510-ap-online-general-election-news","tag-product-32520-ap-online-other-u-s-government-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-texas","tag-thomas-massie","tag-trump-cornyn-paxton-texas-republican-runoff","tag-wayne-hamilton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304432","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=304432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}