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Though the candidates’ campaigns were quiet over the weekend, Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sunday, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him.<\/p>\n
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Paxton, Trump posted on social media, \u201cwas also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,\u201d while calling Cornyn \u201cVERY disloyal to me.\u201d It was Trump’s strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president’s reproach of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy before he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary.<\/p>\n
After Trump’s jabs, Cornyn still leaned into his support for the president just before Monday’s event. The senator said that 99.3% of his votes aligned with Trump, that he \u201cwants him to be successful\u201d and then he referenced Trump\u2019s previous comments \u201cwhere he called me a good man and a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for endorsing his opponent, \u201cobviously the president is entitled to make his pick,” he said, but \u201cTexans are a pretty independent breed and people will be making their own choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following Trump’s call for retribution, Republican voters in Indiana and Kentucky have also chosen GOP primary challengers over incumbent GOP officeholders who have crossed the president or opposed his agenda.<\/p>\n
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For a contest that is expected to draw a fraction of Texas\u2019 18.7 million voters, the two candidates\u2019 campaigns and supporting groups were continuing to bombard all Texans with advertising, though more by Cornyn’s backers than Paxton’s.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s just a slug fest, with the campaigns and third-party groups slugging it out,\u201d said Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.<\/p>\n
The combination of Cornyn’s campaign and supporting super PACs has far outspent pro-Paxton groups over the past year, by almost nine-to-one. But the gap has shrunk as the runoff has approached. In the final week of the campaign, the combination of pro-Cornyn ad spending was less than twice that of Paxton’s group.<\/p>\n
Cornyn’s network continued to air spots attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions that have shadowed him with little effect throughout the campaign. The senator’s consequent argument to voters is that Paxton would struggle in the general election and threaten to flip the seat blue.<\/p>\n
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\u201cPaxton\u2019s flaws and the baggage he brings to the general election is going to be exploited to the fullest by James Talarico,\u201d he told reporters, before heading into Monday’s ceremony and giving a speech devoid of campaign politics to the assembled graduates.<\/p>\n
Cornyn\u2019s campaign also had reprised an ad noting his tendency to vote in the Senate for Trump\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n
Paxton’s campaign and groups supporting him transitioned midweek to all ads noting Trump’s endorsement, though Paxton’s primary super PAC, Lone Star Liberty Fund, began airing one over the weekend aimed at raising questions about state Rep. James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate nominee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, smiles at a campaign event in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[54320,145,2135,3309,1967,2917,23681,59373,59370,59371,59372,61260,61261,61262,82,27,29,28,111455,54319],"class_list":["post-308815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-bill-cassidy","tag-donald-trump","tag-james-talarico","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-kentucky","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-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-senate-paxton-cornyn-trump-election","tag-wayne-hamilton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308815","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=308815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}