Trump enters Texas GOP Senate primary, endorsement coming ‘soon’

president Donald Trump He says he will soon be taking sides in the costly Texas Republican Senate primary showdown between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

“I will be offering my endorsement soon,” the president wrote Wednesday in a letter. Social media sharing The day after Cornyn and Paxton advanced to May 26 Runoff elections. The two hotly contested contenders topped a crowded field of contenders in Tuesday’s primary, but since no one crossed the 50% threshold, the nomination race heads to overtime.

Trump added that he “will ask the candidate I do not support to immediately withdraw from the race!”

A Republican activist in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News Digital that Cornyn is expected to receive the president’s endorsement. However, the president has been known to change his mind about candidates or even Reverse approvals.

Either Cornyn or Paxton will face off in the general election against rising Democratic star Rep. James Tallarico, who bested controversial progressive Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a staunch Trump critic, in the Democratic primary. Tallarico is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in the right-leaning state of Texas.

Senate this year Showdown in Texas She is one of the few across the country who can determine whether Republicans will maintain their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the chamber 53-47.

the Cornyn campaign Allied political action committees spent nearly $100 million to run ads attacking Paxton and Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt — who came in third — with the senator charging in the final weeks of the primary campaign that Democrats would flip their seat in the general election if Paxton was the GOP nominee.

Cornyn and his allies National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the Senate GOP campaign arm, has repeatedly pointed to a series of scandals and legal problems that have plagued Paxton over the past decade, as well as his ongoing messy divorce.

The Texas Republican Senate primary is heading to overtime

“Over the next 12 weeks, Republican primary voters in Texas will hear more about my record of delivering conservative victories in the U.S. Senate, and they will learn more about Kaine’s indefensible personal conduct and failures in office,” Cornyn told reporters Tuesday night.

“Just like the primaries, we have a plan to win the runoff, and we are executing it,” Cornyn pledged. “Judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton.”

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, speaks during a campaign event in The Woodlands, Texas, Saturday, February 28, 2026. (Annie Mulligan/AP Photo)

Paxton, MAGA brand “As we head into this runoff, we’re going to make the choice clearer. While John Cornyn was making deals on gun control and pardons, I was suing corrupt Joe Biden 107 times over,” the longtime Trump supporter and ally who has garnered significant national attention by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations told supporters on primary night.

“John Cornyn spent about $100 million trying to buy this seat. We spent about $5 million,” he said.

Round 2 of Cornyn vs. Paxton hits the road

He urged Trump on Wednesday to “let this continue for much longer, for the good of the party and our country itself. It must stop now!”

Referring to Talarico, the president said: “We have an easy opponent on the radical left, and we must fully focus on eliminating him quickly and decisively.”

Texas State Rep. James Tallarico, D-Austin, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a primary election watch event Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Eric Jay/AP Photo)

“Both John and Ken had great races, but not good enough. Now, this race, it has to be perfect!” Trump warned.

Trump, whose influence over the Republican Party remains enormous, remained neutral in the Republican primary race. The three candidates, who sought the president’s endorsement, were present on Friday as Trump held an event in… Corpus Christi, Texas.

“They’re in a little race together,” Trump said of Cornyn and Paxton. “You know that, right? There’s a bit of a race. It’ll be interesting, right? They’re both great people too.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the lobbying campaign for Cornyn’s endorsement did not stop, and even intensified in the hours after primary night.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that Cornyn had a “great night” against Paxton. The Senate’s top Republican has spent the past few months bending Trump’s ear at every opportunity to jump into the race and support the longtime incumbent.

“He’s in a position to win the runoff, and if the president approves early, that will save everyone a lot of money, a lot of, you know, just 10 weeks of another enthusiastic campaign on our part that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.

Thune spoke with Cornyn on Wednesday morning, and he thought Tallarico was the most fascinating matchup for Republicans in November — and one that Cornyn was better suited to win. “A good match for us is John Cornyn at the top of the list,” Thune said.

NRSC Director of Communications Joanna Rodriguez told Fox News Digital, “John Cornyn remains the only candidate who guarantees that State Rep. Talarico will never become a U.S. Senator and ensures that the fight for President Trump’s Senate majority will be fought in the true battleground states, not Texas.”

Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the top political action committee supporting Senate Republicans, which spent millions on Cornyn’s behalf in the primary campaign, made clear in a statement early Wednesday that it would continue to support the senator in the runoff.

“SLF and its sister organizations are proud to support Senator Cornyn early, and we look forward to him securing the Republican nomination on May 26,” Alex Latcham, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a GOP political operative in Trump’s orbit told Fox News Digital that “Talarico being the nominee makes President Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn more important than ever.”

While Trump remained neutral, chief pollster Tony Fabrizio helped Cornyn’s campaign. Veteran Republican strategist Chris Lacivita, who served as co-manager of Trump’s 2024 White House campaign, has also consulted with a super PAC aligned with Cornyn. “The second wave is going to be a bitch,” Lacivita wrote in a social media post Tuesday night targeting Paxton and his top political adviser.

But on Paxton’s side of the field, activists and donors are confident they can unseat the senator.

“This was Cornyn’s chance to fend off his challenger by getting more than 50%, and he couldn’t do that,” Dan Eberhart, an oil exploration CEO and a prominent Republican donor who supports Paxton, told Fox News Digital. “Voters in the runoff are going to be less friendly to Cornyn.”

In reference to former Senate Republican Party leader Sen. mitch mcconnell, “This race is about MAGA versus McConnell,” said Eberhart, the Kentucky Republican who has often served as an anti-Trump figure.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Republican Senate candidate, speaks to supporters at a campaign event on the eve of the primary, in Waco, Texas on March 2, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

Meanwhile, Lone Star Liberty, a major pro-Paxton political action committee, circulated a memo before Tuesday’s election in which it brushed off threats that Cornyn would succeed in a runoff by continuing to attack the attorney general over his string of scandals, arguing there was nothing new to offer.

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“Cornyn’s talk about unleashing new attacks in the runoff is merely a threat,” the memo said. “The truth is that from day one, his forces fired every bullet they had. There were no new attacks left – just more of the same, at ever greater cost and with ever-diminishing returns.”

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