{"id":309539,"date":"2026-05-26T18:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T18:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/309539\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T18:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T18:52:10","slug":"cornyn-tries-to-keep-his-texas-senate-seat-in-a-runoff-with-trump-backed-paxton-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/309539\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornyn tries to keep his Texas Senate seat in a runoff with Trump-backed Paxton | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

PLANO, Texas (AP) \u2014 Texans are choosing a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate<\/a> in Tuesday\u2019s runoff election<\/a>, bringing to a close a bitter and expensive primary where President Donald Trump weighed in<\/a> late in another effort to rid the GOP of leaders he sees as less devoted to him.<\/p>\n

Trump’s endorsement of state Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> over four-term Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> gives the challenger a boost and puts Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.<\/p>\n

That’s despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90 million in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton.<\/p>\n

It’s the latest GOP contest where Trump has sought to punish a Republican he sees as insufficiently loyal. This month, he has successfully backed challengers to incumbents in Louisiana<\/a>, Kentucky<\/a> and Indiana<\/a>, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.<\/p>\n

Paxton’s campaign and a pro-Paxton super PAC began airing ads promoting the endorsement within 24 hours of Trump’s announcement. Cornyn acknowledged Trump’s move would have an impact but said he wasn’t giving up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know who gets to choose our senators, and it\u2019s the people of Texas,\u201d he said hours after the endorsement.<\/p>\n

The winner will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico<\/a> in November, when Democrats see hope of winning a statewide Texas office for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic U.S. House nominees<\/a> for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party wants to flip.<\/p>\n

The primary has been long and costly<\/p>\n

Cornyn led Paxton in the March primary<\/a> but failed to win a majority. That was after Cornyn and his supporters waged a monthslong ad campaign, mostly attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions. The two-term attorney general was acquitted on corruption charges in a 2023 impeachment trial<\/a>, where allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Paxton\u2019s wife filed for divorce last year, citing \u201cbiblical grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The alliance of pro-Cornyn groups has continued its attack, outspending Paxton’s campaign and two allied super PACs $16.5 million to $5.9 million since March 3, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.<\/p>\n

Trump promised to endorse immediately after the primary but didn\u2019t act until after early voting began last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to win,\u201d Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him.<\/p>\n

David Jacobson, a retired 71-year-old Dallas-area resident, said Trump’s endorsement was a factor in his decision to back Paxton on Tuesday. While Cornyn has for the most part been a strong Trump supporter, Jacobson generally thinks most politicians have remained in office too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s time for a change,\u201d he said after voting near Dallas.<\/p>\n

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Linda Williams said she voted for Cornyn, calling him \u201cthe lesser of two evils.\u201d She thinks Cornyn has a better chance to beat Talarico this fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause Paxton is a crook,” Williams said after voting in Plano, outside Dallas.<\/p>\n

Trump snubs Cornyn amid retribution campaign<\/p>\n

The negative tenor could diminish turnout in an election already complicated by coming the day after Memorial Day, Texas Republican strategist Tyler Norris said.<\/p>\n

The dynamic could favor Paxton, whose support draws from the most loyal Trump base in Texas, or \u201cthe hardest of the hard core,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n

Trump, in his endorsement, also poked at Cornyn, saying he \u201cwas not supportive of me when times were tough\u201d and that \u201cJohn was very late in backing me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the presidency again in 2024 and that his \u201ctime has passed him by.\u201d He also was an early critic of Trump\u2019s plan for a border wall<\/a> between the U.S. and Mexico \u2014 a project he now supports.<\/p>\n

Cornyn said Tuesday on Fox News Radio’s \u201cThe Brian Kilmeade Show\u201d that the president’s ire was misplaced. There are \u201cgrifters,” he said, “claiming that I am opposed to the president’s agenda, and I think that\u2019s caused some confusion with the president himself. But I\u2019ve been supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some GOP strategists have argued that a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority. Cornyn has the support of Senate GOP leaders.<\/p>\n

Democrats also will choose US House nominees<\/p>\n

Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee<\/a> and veteran Rep. Al Green are vying for the party nod<\/a> in Texas’ 18th District, which the Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew last year. The new map led to a runoff between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections<\/a> in the Houston area.<\/p>\n

Former Rep. Colin Allred and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson are competing in the Dallas-area 33rd District. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid<\/a> and instead is looking to return to the House.<\/p>\n

Near San Antonio, Democratic leaders are trying to prevent Maureen Galindo<\/a>, who has expressed antisemitic views, from winning the party’s runoff with Johnny Garcia. While Texas lawmakers redrew the 35th District to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and don’t want Galindo’s past comments to impede them.<\/p>\n

Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle contributed from Sasche, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLANO, Texas (AP) \u2014 Texans are choosing a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Tuesday\u2019s runoff election, bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5353,288,490,75848,287,22824,27,29,28,111551,1499],"class_list":["post-309539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-campaign-finance","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-political-endorsements","tag-politics","tag-run-off-elections","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-senate-cornyn-paxton-trump-talarico","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309539","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=309539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}