Ken Paxton is vowing to stay in the Texas Senate race despite Trump’s endorsement

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton makes it clear: he remains in the race for the Republican Senate nomination even if President Donald Trump endorses Paxton’s rival, longtime Sen. John Cornyn.

“I’m still in the race,” Paxton said in an interview Wednesday evening. “I owe it to the people of Texas.”

Trump says he will soon take sides in the expensive and heated GOP primary race between Cornyn and Paxton.

“I will make my Agreement soon,” the president wrote in a social media post hours after Cornyn and Paxton advanced to the May 26 election.

The two fierce rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in Tuesday’s primary, but with no one clearing the 50% threshold, the nomination race will go into overtime.

Trump added that “he will be asking the candidate that I do not encourage him to LEAVE OFFICE immediately!”

A Republican operative on Trump’s political trail told Fox News Digital that Cornyn is expected to receive the president’s endorsement. However, the president has been known to change his mind on candidates or withdraw recommendations.

A second source on Trump’s political trail told Fox News that despite continuing to influence the president’s decision, given Cornyn’s better-than-expected performance in the primary, Trump is expected to back the senator and prevent a nasty and costly runoff.

THE CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS GOES TO OVERTIME

Asked if she would drop her Senate bid if Trump endorsed Cornyn, Paxton, a MAGA firebrand and longtime Trump supporter with her partner, said no in an interview with Real America’s Voice.

“I spent a year of my life campaigning for John Cornyn because John did not represent the people of Texas well,” Paxton said. “He was against Trump in both of his elections, he said he shouldn’t run for the last time …. The people of Texas, at least the Republicans, would like something different.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks during a primary election viewing party March 3, 2026, in Dallas. (Julio Cortez/The Associated Press)

And a source close to Paxton’s political path confirmed to Fox News Digital that the Texas attorney general is not dropping out of the race.

Cornyn or Paxton will face off in the general election against Rep. James Talarico of the Democratic Party, who holds the reins of Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a critic of Trump, in the primary Democrats. Talarico is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in right-leaning Texas.

‘OPEN-OUT, TRUMP-HATING RADICAL’—REPUBLICANS FAST ON TALARICO

2026 Senate show in Texas he is one of the few people in the country who can decide whether Republicans hold a majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the chamber 53–47.

I Cornyn campaign and aligned PACs spent nearly $100 million running ads attacking Paxton and Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt — who finished third — and the senator charged in the final weeks of the primary campaign that Democrats would flip the seat in the general election if Paxton was the GOP nominee.

Cornyn, associates and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, has repeatedly pointed to the slew of scandals and legal troubles that have dogged Paxton over the past decade, as well as his ongoing divorce.

“Over the next 12 weeks, Texas Republican primary voters will hear more about my record of delivering strong victories in the United States Senate, and learn more about Ken’s indefensible behavior and failures at work,” Cornyn told reporters Tuesday night.

“As a primary, we have a plan to overcome the runoff, and we are in the process of ending it,” said Cornyn. “Judgment day is coming for Ken Paxton.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign stop in The Woodlands, Texas, Feb. 28, 2026. (Annie Mulligan/AP Photo)

Paxton, the MAGA firebrand and a longtime Trump supporter and ally who grabbed the nation’s attention by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, told his supporters on the first night, “As we get into this race, we’re going to make the choice even clearer. While John Cornyn was cutting gun control and amnesty deals, I was suing the corrupt Joe Biden over 107 times.”

And he charged, “John Cornyn spent about $100 million trying to buy this seat. We spent about five million dollars.”

Second Round CORNYN VS. PAXTON CONTINUES

On Wednesday Trump pleaded, “for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, it is allowed to continue. IT MUST STOP NOW!”

And pointing to Talarico, the president argued, “We have an easy-to-defeat winner, against the Far Left, and we must TURN AWAY from rejecting him, quickly and clearly.”

State Rep. James Talarico, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a primary election watch party Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Eric Gay/AP)

“Both John and Ken ran great races, but not well enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!” Trump warned.

Trump, whose influence over the GOP remains large, has remained neutral in the Republican primary race. All three candidates, who were seeking the president’s endorsement, were present Friday as Trump hosted the event Corpus Christi, Texas.

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

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the campaign to persuade people to approve Cornyn has not stopped, and if anything, it is increasing in the hours since the night.

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

“You have a chance to win the race, and if the president agrees early, it saves everybody a lot of money, and a lot of, you know, just another 10 weeks of intense campaigning on our side that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.

Thune spoke with Cornyn Wednesday morning, and he believes Talarico was the Republicans’ toughest race in November — one that Cornyn was better suited to win.

“A good comparison for us is John Cornyn at the top of the ticket,” Thune said.

NRSC communications director Joanna Rodriguez told Fox News Digital, “John Cornyn remains the only candidate making sure Rep. Talarico never becomes a United States senator and making sure the battle for President Trump’s Senate majority is fought in real states, not Texas.”

And the Thune-Aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the top PAC supporting Senate Republicans, which spent millions on Cornyn’s behalf in the primary campaign, made it clear in a statement earlier Wednesday that it would continue to support the senator in the election.

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

At the time, a GOP political operative on Trump’s trail told Fox News Digital, “Talarico being the nominee makes President Trump’s endorsement of Cornyn more important than ever.”

While Trump was neutral, his chief investigator, Tony Fabrizio, helped Cornyn’s campaign. And veteran Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who served as co-campaign manager for Trump’s 2024 White House bid, consulted with a top PAC aligned with Cornyn.

LaCivita, in a social media post Tuesday night directed at Paxton and his top political adviser, wrote, “The second wave will be (bi-h.)”

But on Paxton’s side of the playing field, operatives and donors are confident they can dethrone him.

Dan Eberhart, an oil executive and a prominent Republican donor who supports Paxton, told Fox News Digital, “This was Cornyn’s shot at protecting his opponent by getting over 50%, and he couldn’t do it.

Pointing to former longtime Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a frequent Trump foil, Eberhart said, “This race is about MAGA vs. McConnell.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton 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 pro-Paxton super PAC, circulated a memo ahead of Tuesday’s election dismissing threats that Cornyn would prevail in the process by continuing to grill the attorney general about his string of scandals, arguing that he had nothing new to offer.

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“Cornyn’s talk of ‘unleashing’ new attacks on competition is rubbish,” the memo said. “The truth is that from day one, his soldiers fired all the ammunition they had. There are no new attacks left – more of the same, with ever-higher costs and ever-diminishing returns.”

Rich Edson of Fox News contributed to this report

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