Trump backs Paxton in Texas Republican Senate showdown with Cornyn
President Donald Trump is finally taking sides in the contentious and costly Republican Senate primary showdown in Texas between longtime Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The president on Tuesday, in a highly anticipated announcement, endorsed Paxton, a MAGA champion. The president’s extremely potent endorsement came one week before the runoff between Cornyn and Paxton in right-leaning Texas.
“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
The two heated rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in an early March primary, but since no one cleared the 50% threshold, the nomination race headed into overtime, with the runoff election on May 26.
Trump teased his long-awaited endorsement on the grounds of his colossal ballroom, which is still under construction as the Senate mulls whether to provide hundreds of millions in security funding for the project. He decided that now was the time to endorse, after several months of staying neutral, because early voting for the next week’s runoff had opened.
“There are those that say whoever I endorse is going to win,” Trump said. “I don’t know if that’s true, but historically, that’s absolutely true. I just don’t like to say it because I don’t like to brag.”
Cornyn or Paxton will face off in the general election against rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico, who topped progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a vocal Trump critic, in the Democrats’ primary. Talarico is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in right-leaning Texas.
PAXTON VOWS HE’S STAYING IN THE SENATE RACE
This year’s Senate showdown in Texas is one of a handful across the country that could determine if Republicans hold their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the Senate 53-47.
Paxton has faced a slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered him over the past decade, as well as his ongoing messy divorce.
But Trump, in his endorsement, said “Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN. Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”
Trump added that “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
Pointing to the senator’s past criticism of him, Trump added, “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency.”
The president took to social media the day after the March primary to say that an endorsement would be coming soon and that he would “be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”
TRUMP TEASES ENDORSEMENT COMING SOON IN CRUCIAL GOP CLASH
And multiple sources at the time told Fox News and other news organizations that it was likely that Cornyn would land the president’s support.
Hours later, Paxton said that he would stay in the race for the Republican Senate nomination even if Trump endorsed Cornyn.
Asked if he would end his Senate bid if Trump backed Cornyn, Paxton, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump supporter and ally, said no in an interview with Real America’s Voice.
“I’ve spent a year of my life campaigning against John Cornyn because John has not represented the people of Texas well,” Paxton argued. “He’s been against Trump in both of his elections, said he shouldn’t run last time. … The people of Texas, at least the Republicans, would like something different.”
Asked about Paxton’s comments, Trump said a day later in a Politico interview, “Well, that’s bad for him to say… maybe that leads me to go the other direction,” the president added.
CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS HEADED INTO OVERTIME
In a twist, Paxton said a few hours later that he would “consider dropping out of this race if Senate Leadership agrees to lift the filibuster and passes the SAVE America Act.”
The bill, formally titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, would, if passed into law, require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The GOP-backed bill passed the Republican-controlled House but faces legislative roadblocks in the Senate due to opposition from Democrats.
“The Save America Act is the most important bill the U.S. Senate could ever pass, and I’m committed to helping President Trump get it done,” Paxton wrote in a social media post.
“For the good of our country and for the good of passing President Trump’s agenda, I am determined to help him get this done,” he added.
And Paxton charged, “John Cornyn is a coward who has refused to support abolishing the filibuster to pass this bill.”
A Trump endorsement never came in the ensuing days and weeks, and the ‘Save America Act’ remains stalled in Congress.
The Cornyn campaign and aligned super PACs spent nearly $100 million in the primary campaign to run ads attacking Paxton and Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt — who came in third — with the senator charging in the closing weeks of the campaign that Democrats would flip the seat in the general election if Paxton was the GOP’s nominee.
Cornyn, his allies and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm of the Senate GOP, repeatedly took aim at Paxton over his political bagage.
“Over the next 12 weeks, Texas Republican primary voters will hear more about my record of delivering conservative victories in the United States Senate, and learn more about Ken’s indefensible personal behavior and failures in office,” Cornyn told reporters on Tuesday night.
“Just like the primary, we have a plan to win the runoff, and we are in the process of executing it,” Cornyn said. “Judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton.”
Paxton, who has grabbed significant national attention the past dozen years by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, told supporters on primary night, “As we head into this runoff, we’re going to make the choice even clearer. While John Cornyn was cutting deals on gun control and amnesty, I was suing corrupt Joe Biden over 107 times.”
And he charged, “John Cornyn spent around $100 million trying to buy this seat. We’ve spent around $5 million.”
In a social media post, Paxton touted, “The truth is clear: No one has been more loyal to Donald Trump than me—fighting the stolen 2020 election, being in Mar-a-Lago when he announced his 2024 campaign, and standing with him in NY in the face of lawfare.”
ROUND TWO OF CORNYN VS. PAXTON GETS UNDER WAY
Trump, as the Texas race moved to a runoff, urged, “for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!”
And pointing to Talarico, the president argued, “We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively.”
“Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!” Trump warned.
Trump, whose clout over the GOP remains immense, stayed neutral in the Republican primary race. All three candidates, who sought the president’s endorsement, were in attendance just ahead of the primary as Trump held an event in Corpus Christi, Texas.
“They’re in a little race together,” Trump said of Cornyn and Paxton. “You know that, right? A little bit of a race. It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people, too.”
Helping Cornyn land the president’s endorsement was an intense lobbying campaign by Senate Republican leaders.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters the day after the primary that Cornyn had “a great night” against Paxton. The top Senate Republican spent the last several months bending Trump’s ear at every opportunity to jump into the race and back the longtime incumbent.
“He’s positioned to win the runoff, and if the president endorses early, it saves everybody a lot of money, and a lot of, you know, just 10 weeks of another spirited campaign on our side that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.
Thune spoke with Cornyn the day after the primary, and believed that Talarico was the more formidable match-up for Republicans in November — one that Cornyn was better suited to win.
“The matchup that’s good for us is John Cornyn at the top of the ticket,” Thune said.
NRSC communications director Joanna Rodriguez told Fox News Digital, “John Cornyn remains the only candidate who guarantees state Rep. Talarico never becomes a United States senator and ensures the fight for President Trump’s Senate majority is waged in true battleground states, not Texas.”
And the Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the top super PAC backing Senate Republicans, which through the aligned One Nation public advocacy group, spent millions on behalf of Cornyn in the primary campaign, stayed out of the runoff campaign.
Meanwhile, a GOP political operative in Trump’s orbit told Fox News Digital, “Talarico being the nominee makes President Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn more important than ever.”
While Trump stayed neutral during the heated primary campaign, his top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, helped the Cornyn campaign. And veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who served as co-campaign manager of Trump’s 2024 White House bid, consulted for a top Cornyn-aligned super PAC.
But on the Paxton side of the playing field, operatives and donors were confident they could unseat the senator.
Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling chief executive officer and prominent Republican donor and bundler who supports Paxton, told Fox News Digital, “This was Cornyn’s shot to fend off his challenger by getting over 50%, and he couldn’t do it. The runoff voters will be even less friendly territory for Cornyn.”
Pointing to former longtime Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has often acted as a Trump foil, Eberhart said, “This race is about MAGA vs. McConnell.”
Meanwhile, Lone Star Liberty, a pro-Paxton super PAC, circulated a memo ahead after the primary that shrugged off threats that Cornyn would succeed in the runoff by continuing to hammer the attorney general over his litany of scandals, arguing there was nothing new to offer.
“Cornyn’s talk of ‘unleashing’ new attacks in the runoff is bluster,” the memo states. “The truth is that from day one, his forces fired every bullet they had. There are no new attacks left — only more of the same, at ever-greater cost and with ever-diminishing returns.”
Fox News’ Rich Edson and Patrick Ward contributed to this report
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