Crystal Ball Sees Endorsement for Paxton
on Trump Spring Horizon But Not that Soon
Capitol Inside
March 15, 2026
The Capitol Inside crystal ball does not see President Donald Trump endorsing Texas incumbent John Cornyn in a high-stakes U.S. Senate runoff like he'd been prepared to do nearly two weeks ago when he promised to come off the sidelines on the day after the primary vote.
While no endorsement could be the safest bet at this point, we'd put our money on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as the eventual winner of the Trump endorsement sweepstakes en route to a rout in the primary runoff election on May 26. Predicting the current president is a challenge that's scary and often doomed to fail. If Trump throws his monstrous might behind Paxton, the guess here is that it won't be anytime soon like he'd vowed on the day after the primary vote when he indicated that he'd made his pick. Don't be that surprised if Trump waits until the final weekend before the overtime vote before going public with his selection for the Senate runoff like he did with endorsements for Don Huffines and Nate Sheets for Texas statewide races in the first round's closing days.
Trump will go with the candidate who he thinks will win - and Paxton appears to have a decided advantage based on key trends and the limited polling that's been done here since the primary election on March 3 when Cornyn led by Paxton by one point with almost 42 percent of the vote.
Trump praised both of the surviving candidates in the Texas Senate race - and he said he believes that either one would prevail in the general election when the runoff winner squares off with James Talarico as the Democratic nominee in November. Trump called Talarico "so weak" in the exchange with NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Walker. But Trump and the Republicans from Austin to Washington D.C. are more afraid of Talarico than any other Democrat they've faced in a general election in Texas during two dozen years of GOP rule here. Some of them will try to tell you that Beto O'Rourke was a better candidate for the Democrats in Texas than the current Senate nominee. That's wishful thinking. O'Rourke didn't run himself this year because he knew he couldn't beat Talarico. Jasmine Crockett was the only big-time Texas Democrat who thought the state representative from Austin could be defeated - and he she lost to him by more than 6 percentage points.
All the ingredients are there for a blue wave in a league with 2018 when Democrats flipped a dozen Texas House seats, two state Senate districts and two congressional seats in the Lone Star State. O'Rourke came within 3 points of knocking off U.S. Senator Ted Cruz at the top of the ballot here that year. But Talarico has an advantage that O'Rourke and the other Democrats who've run statewide here could not have envisioned much less enjoyed with the bloodbath that the GOP primary has turned out to be in the Texas Senate competition. A sizeable number of Paxton supporters would not vote for Cornyn in the runoff no matter what the president thinks. A smaller but significant sum of GOP voters in Texas won't support Paxton under any circumstances. .
But Trump suggested that he wasn't convinced that Cornyn would be the right choice despite claims from establishment Republicans that Paxton is too radioactive to win in November. “I’ve heard that," Trump said. "I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know that to be a fact. But I like him. I’ve always liked him. I like both candidates very much.”
Trump has indicated that the waffling on the Texas Senate endorsement stems from a preoccupation with passing legislation that's designed to give the Republicans an added advantage in the 2026 midterm elections in a proactive attempt to head off a wave that's a distinct and growing possibility with the president's approval marks at historic lows.
“A lot has to do with the Save America Act," Trump said in the exchange with the network reporter. "Republicans have to get that passed - because that will secure voting in this country."
The stalling of the legislation in the Senate has given Trump an excuse for withholding the Texas endorsement. Trump could be gambling that Senate Republican leaders will change the rules on a filibuster as the only apparent looming roadblock to the voting bill if they believe he would endorse Cornyn in return. But Cornyn already has abandoned his position on the filibuster - having promised last week to vote to bypass it if that's what it takes to pry the measure from the chamber's leadership.
While Trump said he appreciated Cornyn's flexibility, the veteran Texas solon's capitulation on the Save American plan didn't appear to move the needle as far as the president's deliberations on a Senate endorsement are concerned. Trump appeared to be one Truth Social post away from tapping Cornyn to represent him in the runoff less than 24 hours after the polls closed on election day. Trump's camp had an announcement on a Cornyn plug ready to go. But Trump - acting perhaps on gut instinct - apparently decided to sleep on it and awoke the following morning to an angry MAGA backlash.
The president's backing off on Cornyn gave both candidates a stage for making cases for his complete and total support. It bought time for Paxton - and the AG's camp and his supporters have wasted no time trying to expose the incumbent as a RINO who had doubts about Trump and claimed that his time had passed him by before the 2020 election. Paxton released a scorching advertisement on social media during the weekend that portrayed Cornyn as a major Trump nemesis and constant critic.
The only two polls that have been made public up to now on the Senate runoff have shown Paxton out in front - with an 8 point lead in one and a three-point advantage in the other. A Texas Public Opinion Research survey that was taken over two days last week showed Paxton with 49 percent support compared to 41 percent for Cornyn. The nonpartisan group's poll. which was conducted by Slingshot Strategies, found that 48 percent of the Republican voters who backed U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt in round one supported Paxton now while 31 percent shifted allegiances to the incumbent. The TPOR poll found Paxton up by 1 point in the event of a Trump endorsement for Cornyn. But the AG led Cornyn by 26 points with 58 percent support if the president picked him as the nominee instead.
A Public Policy Polling survey on March 5 and 6 showed a more competitive fight in the GOP runoff for the Texas Senate seat - with Paxton at 45 percent compared to 42 percent for the incumbent. The poll was conducted for the Texas Justice Fund - a Democratic organization. Forty-six percent of Hunt voters broke to Paxton in the PPP survey while 32 percent of those who supported the congressional member who was eliminated expressed plans to back Cornyn in OT.
"Ken Paxton enters the race with a clear advantage among the Republican primary runoff
electorate," according to the Texas Public Opinion Research analysis of its findings. "Hunt’s voters are breaking Paxton’s way, and even a Trump endorsement of Cornyn is not
enough to put the incumbent in the lead over Paxton."
Longtime Democratic strategist Matt Angle - speaking for the 501(c)(4) Texas Justice Fund - said the polling for the group is bad news for the incumbent Texas senator. "The
bottom line for informed Texas political observers is that John Cornyn is in dire danger of losing his seat in the U.S. Senate," Angle said. "A longtime incumbent of either party forced into a
primary run-off typically loses."
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