Trump Endorses Paxton in Texas Senate Race

President Donald Trump weighed in Tuesday on the Texas Republican Senate primary runoff, backing the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton over 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 on Truth Social on Tuesday. He added that 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.”

The two candidates advanced to a runoff after neither received 50% of the vote on March 3 primary. Cornyn and Paxton received 43% and 41% of the vote, respectively.

The runoff election is scheduled for May 26, with early voting already underway.

Trump’s endorsement comes as the closely watched contest has grown increasingly contentious, with Paxton airing attack ads against Cornyn over his past support for a visa program for Afghans who assisted U.S. forces.

The president’s intervention also comes as the SAVE America Act—a voter ID measure first introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and backed by Trump—has stalled in the Senate. Cornyn recently signaled a shift in his stance on eliminating the filibuster, the chamber’s 60-vote threshold, in order for the measure to pass.

“My fellow conservatives and I have proudly used the 60-vote threshold to protect the country from all sorts of bad ideas and dangerous policies,” Cornyn wrote in a New York Post op-ed this spring. “But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt.”

In the same article, Cornyn argued that “moderate Democrats [are] going extinct” and expressed support for “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to fund the Department of Homeland Security and pass the SAVE America Act.

Trump posted on Tuesday that “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.” He also noted that the senator was “very late” in endorsing his 2024 candidacy for president.

Paxton, meanwhile, has received backing from several Trump-aligned figures and groups, including Texas Republican Reps. Brandon Gill and Troy Nehls and Turning Point USA. He has pledged to continue his work as Texas attorney general at the federal level if elected.

During his tenure, Paxton has launched investigations into companies with ties to China, including technology firms and retailers such as Shein.

Neither Cornyn nor Paxton responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.

The winner of the primary will face Texas Democrat James Talarico in the general election. Talarico, a state senator, raised a record-breaking $27 million in the first quarter of 2026, the largest amount for a U.S. Senate campaign in the first quarter of a calendar year.

This story is developing and may be updated.