Not a press release, a formal announcement or even a Truth Social post. President Donald Trump did not endorse either candidate seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Texas before the deadline to remove candidates from the ballot.
That leaves incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton locked in a bitterly contested runoff race, one that could signal voters’ sentiment toward the current administration.
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Either candidate could suspend his campaign, and the president could still endorse a candidate. But Texas election officials can no longer remove a name from the ballot ahead of the May 26 runoff.
The race has become more personal after Cornyn’s team put out an attack ad highlighting adultery allegations against Paxton.
Whoever wins will face off against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. The race is one of the most anticipated in the 2026 midterms, with some analysts and polls suggesting Talarico could win it all. No Democrat has prevailed in a statewide election in Texas since 1994.
But even if Trump makes an endorsement and one Republican drops out, there’s no guarantee the remaining candidate would win the runoff. Earlier this year, Texas resident Kelly Hall thought he had dropped out of a Democratic primary for a state House seat. But his name remained on the ballot — and on primary election day, he was shocked to learn he had won the nomination by 3,000 votes.
No Trump endorsement
A day after the March 3 primaries, Trump said he would give his endorsement “soon,” adding that the candidate he didn’t endorse must drop out.
“I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!“ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Is that fair? We must win in November!!!”
Both candidates have tried to sway Trump’s decision since the primaries by doubling down on their support for the SAVE Act, an election bill that Trump wants the Senate to pass.
Cornyn, who won 42% of the vote in the March 3 primary but fell well short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, changed his longstanding position on the Senate filibuster. He now says the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster standing in the way of the SAVE Act’s passage.
For his part, Paxton offered to drop out of the race — if the Senate passed the SAVE Act.
Outside groups are also trying to coax Trump into an endorsement. According to The New York Times, a political action committee supporting Paxton recently ran television ads in Florida, hoping to reach Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
Cornyn, considered the more mainstream Republican between the two candidates, recently released an ad attacking Paxton over the extramarital affair he allegedly had that ended his marriage. The ad — created with artificial intelligence — shows an image of Paxton with two women, each with a black box labeled “mistress” covering her face.
Who is leading in the polls?
Recent polling shows Paxton leading Cornyn, but 13% of Republicans are still undecided. But they could be swayed by a presidential endorsement.
A poll by the University of Houston found that 55% of likely Republican voters would be more likely to support the same candidate as Trump.
A Texas Public Opinion Research poll found that Paxton had a nearly double-digit lead over Cornyn. However, that lead dropped to just 1% if Trump endorsed Cornyn.
On the other side, Talarico is a fresh face for the Democratic Party, and many are hopeful that he could be the first Democrat elected to a Texas Senate seat in nearly 40 years. However, others are getting flashbacks to 2018, when Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz by less than 3 percentage points.
But, according to a Newsweek report, the two most recent polls show Talarico with a one-point lead over both Republicans.
That is well inside each poll’s margin of error. But it reflects a much stronger showing than O’Rourke had at this point in the 2018 race, when he trailed Cruz by 18 points.
