Trump endorses Ken Paxton in Senate GOP runoff
by Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune
May 19, 2026
President Donald Trump on Tuesday endorsed Ken Paxton in the Republican runoff for U.S. Senate in Texas, ending over a year of furious lobbying and giving the attorney general a significant boost in his campaign against Sen. John Cornyn.
“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 announcing the endorsement.
The endorsement comes more than two months after Trump initially pledged to weigh in on the race and with just a week to go until the election. Tens of thousands of ballots have already been cast during the state’s early voting period, which began Monday and will run through the end of the week.
The day after the March primary, Trump said that he would endorse “soon” in order to stop a primary battle that, he said at the time, “cannot, for the good of the party, and our Country, be allowed to go on any longer.”
Despite promising to intervene quickly after March 3, when Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton, Trump kept both campaigns on edge for months. He initially said he would ask his non-endorsed candidate to drop out, but his neutral stance meant the opportunity to do so came and went.
Instead, the two camps and their allies have spent nearly $25 million on advertising in the runoff, much of it used for the two candidates to bash each other in intensely personal terms. It brings the total ad cost of the Republican primary to nearly $125 million.
In teasing the endorsement Tuesday morning, Trump said he’s “had my mind made up for a long time.”
The endorsement is a serious blow to Cornyn and his political allies, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who have repeatedly pushed the White House to back their colleague both publicly and privately. On the trail, Cornyn has hugged Trump closely, boasting of his 99% voting record with the president’s position and going so far as to propose a bill last week to rename U.S. Highway 287 as Interstate 47 in honor of Trump.
The Cornyn camp has made the case that Paxton’s candidacy, given his ethical and personal baggage, would endanger Republican control of both the Senate seat and down-ballot races, including the U.S. House seats that the Legislature redrew last summer to elect Republicans. Cornyn allies put out a memo detailing nine such districts, and 25 Texas House seats, where Paxton’s presence at the top of the ticket creates a big enough drag to put the districts in jeopardy.
The president’s decision to endorse Paxton also reflects his confidence that Democratic nominee James Talarico is a weak candidate. Talarico has polled ahead of both Cornyn and Paxton on numerous occasions this cycle, leading those in Cornyn’s camp to urge voters to nominate the senior senator, who has outrun fellow Republicans on numerous occasions.
Trump initially said in early March that Republicans needed to come together to “focus on putting him away, quickly and decisively.” But in the weeks since, Trump has bashed Talarico over his liberal social views and said that either Cornyn or Paxton should beat him easily.
“I believe that any human being running against him, sick, incompetent, close to death or, even a child, would win,” Trump said in late March.
Trump has backed challengers to Republican incumbents on numerous occasions this cycle. He endorsed against Indiana state senators who voted against his redistricting push and is currently trying to force out Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who frequently votes against the Republican majority. Trump also successfully weighed in against Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict the president in his 2021 impeachment trial and finished third in his primary on Saturday.
But Trump’s endorsement against Cornyn represents a new phase of his reshaping of the GOP. Unlike others, Cornyn routinely votes with the GOP majority, voted to acquit Trump in both impeachment trials and was part of the Senate Republican leadership team during Trump’s first term.
In throwing his weight behind Paxton, Trump is rewarding a loyal soldier who led the legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election and spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021. Like Trump, Paxton has faced federal prosecution and impeachment, and survived both. And Paxton has similarly raucous support among the MAGA base that has powered Trump’s political career — a constituency that came out in full force to loudly protest Trump’s reported inclination to endorse Cornyn more than two months ago.
The president noted that loyalty in his endorsement.
“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN,” Trump said. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness. We can never allow what happened to the United States of America during the Corrupt Biden Administration, to happen again.”
Trump’s decision to weigh in now for Paxton also validates an ultimatum the attorney general proposed shortly after his second-place finish in the primary.
Paxton offered to consider dropping out of the race if the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a voting restrictions bill that is a top priority of Trump’s.
Senate passage is inhibited by the legislative filibuster, a procedural tool that requires 60 votes to end debate on most legislation. Unless Senate Republicans end the filibuster, which the conference lacks the support to do, passage of the SAVE America Act is effectively impossible.
But Paxton’s play centered the race on the bill. Though Cornyn dropped his longtime opposition to ending the filibuster in mid-March, saying he would support scrapping it in order to pass the elections bill, Trump remained mum on the runoff during the critical period in which a candidate could have dropped out.
Polling of the runoff has shown a tight race between Cornyn and Paxton, with most surveys indicating a tie or a narrow Paxton lead. Cornyn finished first in the primary with 42% of the vote to Paxton’s 40.5%.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
