Trump Says He's Made Choice on Senate
after Cornyn Makes Trip on Air Force One
U.S. Senate Primary Polls
Capitol Inside
February 27, 2026
U.S. Senator John Cornyn got to ride on Air Force One with President Donald Trump on Friday in a visit to Corpus Christi where the nation's leader suggested that an endorsement would be forthcoming in the GOP primary fight at the top of the Texas ticket in the midst of challenges from Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.
Trump was full of surprises in the sojourn to the Texas coast on the final day for early voting for Tuesday's primary election - saying that he's considering the possibility of nominating U.S. Senator Ted Cruz to the U.S. Supreme Court while giving U.S. Rep. Chip Roy a plug from the stage for a hotly-contested attorney general's race for which he hadn't taken sides.
“Chip Roy running for office," Trump reminded the audience. "You are doing a good job Chip.”
Roy faces State Senators Mayes Middleton and Joan Huffman along with Aaron Reitz in the race to replace Paxton as the state's top lawyer. Roy's critics have portrayed him throughout the fight as someone who'd alienated the president for failing to march in lockstep on every issue. Middleton, who's been close behind Roy in polling on the AG's race, has been campaigning as MAGA Mayes and appears destined for a runoff with the maverick representative from Austin.
Runoffs appear to be in store for the Republicans in the Senate battle and statewide races for attorney general, comptroller and railroad commissioner. But the lineup for OT for the GOP in the Senate race - barring a Trump endorsement that fuels an outright victory at the finish line next week - will be a given with Paxton and the veteran incumbent who won the job initially and is fighting tooth-and-nail to keep it at the polls in 2026.
Cornyn had a chance to audition for the president's support on the airplane ride to Texas in a cast that included Texas actor Dennis Quaid and Cruz - a former nemesis who'd attacked Trump relentlessly as a candidate for president himself 10 years ago. He may have passed on the flattery he received from the president at the Texas event. “We have a great Senator, John Cornyn," Trump said. "Thank you, John.”
Cruz joked in a social media post that he'd had the honor of flying on AF1 with two presidents in a reference to Quaid's role as Ronald Reagan in the 2024 film Reagan.
"I'm thinking about putting him in the Supreme Court!" Trump said at the CC rally. "He's the only guy I'd know who'd get 100% of Democrats AND Republicans. They want to get him out of there, he's such a pain in the a-- but he's so talented!"
Such a move would force the junior Texas solon to give up his seat in the upper house of Congress with four years remaining in a term he won in 2024. A Trump endorsement would have the potential to push Paxton over the top in next week's vote in the Senate race based on polling this week. Cornyn would expect to have the edge in overtime if he scored a Trump endorsement before the election Tuesday but still finished with less than half the vote.
A poll that the University of Texas at Tyler released on Friday showed Cornyn ahead of Paxton by 6 points after trailing the AG in most if not all of the other surveys on the Senate race in the past month. Cornyn had support from 41 percent support compared to 35 percent for Paxton and 15 percent for Hunt in the UT Tyler poll that was conducted over the course of nine days ending February 22. Paxton led Cornyn by almost 6 points on average in five other surveys on the Senate race that weren't internal polls for the individual candidates. All of the polls on the GOP competition have pointed to a runoff in the making for the spring.
But the UT Tyler survey in February proved to be the latest example of polling that's been all over the map in the battle that U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas and State Rep. James Talarico of Austin are waging for the Senate nomination in the Democratic primary election. The UT Tyler poll found Crockett in front by 18 points with 55 percent of the vote.
Crockett had a 12-point lead in a University of Texas poll in the first half of February - and she was up on Talarico by 8 points in a University of Houston survey on the contest in the second half of January. Talarico and Paxton both led their chief rivals by a dozen points in a survey by a major Democratic polling firm this week.
Trump teased an endorsement for the Senate fight yet again on Friday in Texas when he indicated he'd determined which of the three major contenders he would endorse but wasn't ready to disclose the name yet.
The president capped off the trip with lunch at the original Whataburger location in Corpus Christi - and he declared that hamburgers would be on the house for supporters packed into the restaurant as his treat. The jubilant atmosphere gave the impression that Trump wasn't worried about the effect that his record low approval ratings could have on down-ballot candidates for the GOP in Texas in the general election later this year. The Texas Republicans who were on hand for cheering and showering the president with praise gave no hints that they were aware of Trump's potential to be baggage for the ticket and the corresponding possibility of a blue wave in November on par or worse than the one in the midterm election in his first White House stint.
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