DALLAS — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would soon endorse one of the two Republicans competing in the Texas Senate runoff, warning that the contest between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”
Trump posted the declaration on social media Wednesday afternoon, saying he would ask the candidate he does not back to “immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE.” Paxton said he would not comply regardless of the president’s choice.
“I’m staying in this race,” Paxton told Real America’s Voice. “I owe it to the people of Texas.”
Cornyn and Paxton advanced Tuesday to a May 26 Republican runoff. With Democrats eyeing a Texas Senate seat for the first time in nearly four decades, Republicans fear the expensive 83-day sprint will drain party resources and leave the eventual nominee damaged heading into November.
Republicans push Trump toward Cornyn
Multiple Republican senators moved to pressure Trump before his social media post appeared Wednesday. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Cornyn was “the best bet to win the general election.” Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Mike Rounds of South Dakota said they had been sending similar messages to the White House.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Trump ally from Texas who has not made an endorsement, said the expectation was that the president would support Cornyn. “It’s going to be probably more difficult for Paxton to beat Talarico than Cornyn,” Jackson said. Cornyn had already been “dumping tons of money in the race,” Jackson added, warning against spending even more “picking each other apart for weeks and then going into the general election as the nominee wounded.”
Cornyn and his allies spent nearly $70 million to survive the first round of the primary.
Not all voices on the right supported the push toward Cornyn. Conservative influencer Mike Cernovich wrote on social media that “endorsing Cornyn will be more gutting to the base than the Iran air strikes.”
Paxton presses his case
Paxton, who has long been shadowed by allegations of corruption and infidelity, showed no sign of standing down. Speaking to supporters at a Dallas hotel ballroom on Tuesday night, he said: “We just sent a message, loud and clear, to Washington. We are not going to go quietly, and we are not going to let you buy the seat.”
The pro-Paxton Lone Star political action committee issued a memo calling Cornyn a “Washington relic” and claiming he had “no viable path to the Republican nomination.” The memo called on Cornyn to “suspend his campaign, concede the nomination to Ken Paxton, and refuse to allow another $100+ million in Republican resources to be burned in a race that is already decided.”
Cornyn defends his record
Cornyn pushed back without waiting for Trump’s decision. He told reporters that Paxton would be “a dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans” in November.
“I’ve worked for decades to build the Republican Party, both here in Texas and nationally,” Cornyn said. “I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years.”
Cornyn’s campaign attributed the runoff in part to what it called a “vanity campaign” by Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished a distant third. How Hunt’s voters will align in the runoff remains unclear.
Democrats see an opening
Texas, which Trump carried by 14 percentage points, was not expected to be a competitive Senate battleground this year. Operatives in both parties said Democrats have a real chance to claim the state’s Senate seat for the first time in nearly four decades.
Democrats nominated state Rep. James Talarico, a 36-year-old Christian progressive. Republicans privately considered Talarico a stronger general election candidate than his primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett.