President Donald Trump endorsed hardliner Ken Paxton yesterday in his primary challenge to veteran Republican US Senator John Cornyn, boosting the Texas attorney general’s chances of securing his party’s nomination for a critical Texas race in November’s midterm elections.
Scandal-scarred Paxton faces Cornyn, an old guard Republican, in a May 26 runoff after neither secured a majority in their three-way March primary election. Both candidates had tried to position themselves as closely to Trump as possible, but some Republican leaders had worried that Paxton could endanger a typically safe seat.
Trump in March said he would ask the candidate he did not endorse to drop out of the race, which has been one of the nation’s costliest US Senate primary contests.
“I know Ken well, have seen him tested at the highest and most difficult levels, and he is a WINNER!” Trump wrote in an endorsement posted on his Truth Social platform.
Trump’s post said while Cornyn was a “good man” with whom he worked well, Cornyn was late to back Trump’s Republican presidential nomination.
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