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Republican Ken Paxton is making his final pitch in Texas as he heads into the closing days of the U.S. Senate Republican primary runoff against incumbent John Cornyn, with Donald Trump’s backing playing a central role in Paxton’s messaging, an Associated Press report said. The campaign stop took place in Dripping Springs, Texas, a town outside Austin, as Tuesday’s runoff draws national attention and a flood of advertising.
At the Thursday rally, Paxton told the crowd, “I don’t know if y’all noticed this, but Donald Trump endorsed me,” prompting whoops and applause. Supporters at the event described Trump’s endorsement as evidence that Paxton is closer to the president’s agenda, even as both sides continue to frame the contest as more than a referendum on Trump alone.
Paxton’s campaign has also been turning its focus to the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, opening Thursday’s event with attacks on Talarico before turning to Paxton’s political history. Paxton, according to the report, delivered a biography of his career and emphasized his record of lawsuits aimed at defending conservative values as he tried to make the case for why he should win the nomination.
Supporters offered their own assessments of the matchup. Jeffrey Sonnier, 72, said after attending the rally that Paxton is “a fighter” and “proven that as attorney general,” while Daniel Vega, 18, said Paxton “has had his flaws, but so have we” and added, “He’s repented, let’s move on.”
Cornyn, by contrast, has tried to shift the race toward questions of character and alignment, rather than treating Trump’s endorsement as the deciding factor. In a video posted to X from a recent event, Cornyn said, “He’s called me a friend, and that’s no surprise because I’ve supported him and his policies, you may have seen a commercial or two to that effect, 99.3% of the time,” according to the Associated Press report.
The report also described a campaign messaging pivot on advertising after Trump’s Tuesday endorsement. Paxton’s campaign said Thursday it was pulling negative ads against Cornyn, but after Trump endorsed Paxton, Paxton’s campaign and a supporting super political action committee began airing separate ads promoting Trump’s favor, even as Cornyn’s campaign and allies continued to spend heavily and ran ads that featured video clips of Trump praising Cornyn.
Cornyn’s campaign has long worked to keep the focus on character as well as on what it portrays as differences between the candidates and their approach to Trump’s agenda. The report said Cornyn has argued that, if Paxton becomes the nominee, those issues would be litigated in the general election against Talarico, where voters will be less “willing to overlook all the corruption, the self-dealing and the scandals,” adding that “Ken Paxton would hand it to (Democrats) on a silver platter.”
The Associated Press report said that spending in the runoff has reached beyond $100 million, with roughly $90 million spent on advertising through this week for Cornyn’s campaign and groups supporting it, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact. That figure included more than $20 million spent since the March 3 primary election, while Paxton’s campaign and a single super PAC combined to spend roughly $10.5 million, including about $6.1 million since the primary.
With advertising concentrated across multiple messages, the report said it was unclear how much the late changes would affect Tuesday’s outcome. Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party and an adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott who said he is unaffiliated with either Senate candidate, said, “There is so much noise out there right now,” and added, “I don’t know how any one message is going to break through.”