Trump on endorsing Cornyn or Paxton in Texas Senate runoff: 'I'll make a decision' |
Trump on endorsing Cornyn or Paxton in Texas Senate runoff: ‘I’ll make a decision’
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — President Donald Trump said he’ll “make a decision… maybe relatively soon,” on who he wants to endorse in the Republican runoff primary for Texas’s U.S. Senate seat.
So far, Trump has played Kingmaker in Republican politics. According to Ballotpedia, he’s endorsed 286 candidates in Republican 2026 primaries across the country, including weighing in on 19 of the 33 primaries for U.S. Senate. One race he’s stayed out of so far — the contentious primary in Texas between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, R.
After months of speculation, Trump declined to weigh in on the race ahead of the initial March 3 primary — despite making a whole host of other endorsements on a Corpus Christi visit on the last day of early voting.
“We have a great Attorney General Ken Paxton,” Trump said. “And we have a great senator, John Cornyn.”
Without a Trump endorsement, neither candidate took home more than 50% of the first-round vote — with U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, playing spoiler to send the pair to a runoff. Of note, Cornyn took home 42% of the vote while Paxton took home 40.5%, despite Paxton leading in nearly every poll leading up to the election.
65 days (and counting)
This isn’t the first time Trump said he’s about to weigh in on this race. The day after the first round of voting, Trump declared on TruthSocial, “I will be making an Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”
At the time, the Atlantic reported that Trump was........