{"id":653073,"date":"2026-05-19T20:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653073\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T20:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:53:10","slug":"election-live-updates-trump-backs-ken-paxton-in-texas-senate-race-kentucky-georgia-and-4-other-states-hold-primaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653073\/","title":{"rendered":"Election live updates: Trump backs Ken Paxton in Texas Senate race; Kentucky, Georgia and 4 other states hold primaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

A slew of Republican senators expressed disappointment about Trump\u2019s endorsement of Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas Senate runoff to NBC News this afternoon.<\/p>\n

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters as she entered the Senate GOP closed-door lunch that she was \u201csupremely disappointed” and that Trump’s decision “puts that seat in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sen.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Cornyn; Ken Paxton.\u00a0 Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is an ethically challenged individual,\u201d Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said of Paxton. \u201cJohn Cornyn is an outstanding senator and deserved, in my judgment, the president\u2019s support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m speechless,\u201d Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told NBC News.<\/p>\n

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said it will be \u201cthree times more expensive\u201d for Republicans if Paxton is the nominee. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the pathway for Paxton is there, but it\u2019s more uphill,” he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s looking backward now, and he\u2019s looking at people that were not there when he needed them the most. He has a right to do that. And I like Senator Cornyn. I think he\u2019s been a great senator,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sad. I\u2019m actually sad,\u201d Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said. \u201cIf Paxton wins the primary, I mean, early polling indicated that it could be a problem. Now it\u2019ll just cost us a fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who suffered his own defeat Saturday after Trump endorsed his primary opponent, simply told NBC News, \u201cI thought Paxton was a felon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A slew of Republican senators expressed disappointment about Trump\u2019s endorsement of Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-653073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}