The stage was set Tuesday night for the final showdown between four-term Sen. John Cornyn and contentious state Attorney General Ken Paxton—and the major question following the Republican Senate primary now appears to be: What will President Donald Trump do?
With near-final results in, Cornyn held a thin 42% to 40% lead over Paxton, with Rep. Wesley Hunt finishing third with 15%.
The president, rarely shy about involving himself in contested primaries, remained uncharacteristically neutral in this contest and mentioned all three candidates during a speech in Texas days before the primary.
With Cornyn and Paxton now meeting in a sure-to-be-incendiary runoff May 26, Trump will be under pressure to support the incumbent.
The "Only Cornyn Can Win" argument is sure to be accentuated by the fact that Lone Star State Democrats ended up nominating state Rep. James Talarico — 36 and a moderate-sounding former Presbyterian seminarian — over the shrill and far-left Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
At 74, former state Attorney General and Judge Cornyn is considered the epitome of the Republican establishment — although, as his TV commercials almost always point out, he voted with Trump 99% of the time.
But Paxton, who has vigorously aligned with Trump on every key issue from illegal immigration to the disputed 2020 election, has the backing of much of the MAGA grassroots and early Trump supporters.
His failure to overtake Cornyn in the primary, Lone Star State sources who spoke to Newsmax agreed, was his checkered personal and professional life.
He was impeached in 2023 and avoided removal by the state Senate. More recently, Paxton, 63, has been in the throes of an ugly divorce, and Cornyn commercials slammed him as a "wife cheater and fraud."
"It will be hard for Cornyn to win the runoff without a Trump endorsement," Henry Olsen, senior fellow of the Center for Ethics and Public Policy and syndicated columnist, told Newsmax. "I think [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune and the leadership will lean very heavily on Trump to do that."
Others believe Trump, given the fierce friendship of Paxton, will maintain his neutrality through the runoff in May.
"I doubt Trump will get involved or that Hunt will endorse in the runoff," said Wayne Thorburn, former executive director of the Texas GOP and critically acclaimed author.
"Cornyn could win, especially with Democrats nominating Talarico. If Paxton does get the nomination, then Talarico should have an outside chance of pulling off a major upset," he said.
Indeed, it was back in 1988 that Texas last elected a Democrat senator—the late moderate Lloyd Bentsen, who ran simultaneously as his party’s nominee for vice president that year.
So the stakes will be high in Texas, and the pressure on Trump by Republicans to support the incumbent will be intense.
"Cornyn, whatever his political flaws, is a stronger candidate to beat Talarico," said Arizona State University professor Donald Critchlow, author of three books on the Republican Party. "Republican voters will have to make the same choice that Democrats did in their primary and select the strongest candidate to win. Texas remains a red state, but a divided party will color the state blue."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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