{"id":664856,"date":"2026-05-25T22:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/664856\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T22:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T22:26:10","slug":"cornyn-and-paxton-flood-texas-airwaves-before-gop-senate-runoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/664856\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornyn and Paxton flood Texas airwaves before GOP Senate runoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 Voters in Texas will see little of the Republican candidates<\/a> for U.S. Senate on Monday. But that\u2019s only if they stay away from screens.<\/p>\n

There were no public campaign events scheduled for Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> nor state Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> on the final day of their more than yearlong quest for the GOP nomination. Instead, their fight for Tuesday\u2019s runoff continues as it has for months \u2014 intense and unabated \u2014 through advertising that has topped $109 million, heavily from Cornyn\u2019s side. <\/p>\n

Cornyn is scheduled to host an annual, non-campaign event in San Antonio to recognize high school graduates attending the nation\u2019s service academies. The senator seeking a fifth term held his last public campaign event in Corpus Christi on Friday, ahead of Tuesday\u2019s voting.<\/p>\n

Paxton headlined his last events Thursday<\/a> in the Austin area and in San Antonio, content to let his campaign and a super PAC carry his primary message: that President Donald Trump endorsed him<\/a> on May 19. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s announcement and accompanying dismissal of Cornyn, who has had an awkward public relationship with the president, came on the second day of early voting, which ended Friday. <\/p>\n

Though the candidates were quiet over the weekend, Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sunday, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president\u2019s reproach of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy<\/a> before he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary. <\/p>\n

After Trump\u2019s jabs, Cornyn still leaned into his support for the president just before Monday\u2019s 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,\u201d he said, but \u201cTexans are a pretty independent breed and people will be making their own choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Trump\u2019s 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

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\u2019s backers than Paxton\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\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\u2019s 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\u2019s group. <\/p>\n

Cornyn\u2019s network continued to air spots attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions that have shadowed him with little effect throughout the campaign. The senator\u2019s consequent argument to voters is that Paxton would struggle in the general election and threaten to flip the seat blue.<\/p>\n

\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\u2019s 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\u2019s campaign and groups supporting him transitioned midweek to all ads noting Trump\u2019s endorsement, though Paxton\u2019s 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":"SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 Voters in Texas will see little of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[164749,23,2797,10771,12,1070,793,3138,69123,21482,6590,569,3,73642,111,228737,6999,1022,3664,1059,3438,21,19,22,20,25,24,800,290619],"class_list":["post-664856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-2026-elections","tag-america","tag-bill-cassidy","tag-campaign-finance","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-government-and-politics","tag-james-talarico","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-kentucky","tag-news","tag-political-action-committees","tag-politics","tag-run-off-elections","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-hill-country-floods","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news","tag-wayne-hamilton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664856","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=664856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}