{"id":12991,"date":"2026-05-19T18:23:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/05\/19\/trump-endorses-attorney-general-ken-paxton-in-texas-senate-primary-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T18:23:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:23:01","slug":"trump-endorses-attorney-general-ken-paxton-in-texas-senate-primary-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/05\/19\/trump-endorses-attorney-general-ken-paxton-in-texas-senate-primary-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump endorses attorney general Ken Paxton in Texas Senate primary – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Donald Trump<\/a> has endorsed the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, in the state\u2019s Republican primary, bolstering his bid to unseat the incumbent US senator, John Cornyn.<\/p>\n

The US president praised Paxton, a hardliner who has pitched himself as a political warrior for Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again movement, as an \u201cAmerica First Patriot\u201d in a post on social media on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The intervention, which comes ahead of next week\u2019s May primary runoff, comes despite warnings from other leading Republicans that Cornyn would be a stronger candidate in November\u2019s general elections.<\/p>\n

<\/gu-island><\/figure>\n

Democrats have nominated the Texas state representative, James Talarico<\/a>, as their candidate for Senate. Recent polls have put Talarico, with his blend of faith-based populism, bipartisan appeal and generational energy, in a tight race with Cornyn and Paxton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

But Paxton has been embroiled in a series of controversies. He was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial on corruption charges. He also reached a deal in 2024 to end a long-running securities fraud case.<\/p>\n

Cornyn, an old guard Republican, and Paxton face a 26 May runoff after neither secured a majority in their three-way March primary election.<\/p>\n

Both candidates had tried to position themselves as closely to Trump as possible. Cornyn introduced legislation last week to rename a highway after the president, declaring<\/a> that \u201cnearly 1,800 miles of open road\u201d would \u201cforever be known as the Trump Interstate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am incredibly honored to have President Trump\u2019s COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT,\u201d Paxton wrote<\/a> on social media on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Cornyn \u201cis a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough\u201d, wrote Trump, adding that the US senator \u2013 who has represented Texas in Washington since 2002 \u2013 was \u201cvery late\u201d in backing his run for the White House.<\/p>\n

The prevailing Republican candidate will come up against an ambitious campaign by Democrats to flip the seat, in a reliably Republican state.<\/p>\n

Talarico has emerged as a rising star in the Democratic party, and an effective fundraiser: his campaign said it raised $27m<\/a> in the first three months of 2026, the largest-ever sum for a US Senate candidate in the first quarter of an election year.<\/p>\n

Cornyn said<\/a>: \u201cIt is now time for Texas Republican voters to decide if they want a strong nominee to help our GOP candidates down ballot and defeat Talarico in November, or a weak nominee who jeopardizes everything we care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Talarico said it \u201cdoesn\u2019t matter\u201d who wins the Republican run-off. \u201cWe already know who we\u2019re running against: the billionaire mega-donors and their corrupt political system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat who lost the party\u2019s nomination for US Senate to Talarico, said she was a \u201cbit speechless\u201d when informed by the Guardian at an event in south LA on Tuesday morning that Trump had endorsed Paxton.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen Paxton is a disaster,\u201d said Crockett, speaking from Dulan\u2019s soul food restaurant, where she endorsed HHS secretary Xavier Becerra for governor of California. \u201cThis is the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me of the Republican Party nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about Trump\u2019s decision to weigh into the race, Vice-President JD Vance suggested that being \u201cout of step\u201d with Trump was \u201cnot a good place to be, politically\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known John Cornyn a long time,\u201d Vance told the White House press briefing. \u201cBut unfortunately, when it really counted, Ken Paxton was there for the country and for the president, and that\u2019s why he ultimately earned the president\u2019s endorsement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reuters contributed reporting<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has endorsed the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, in the state\u2019s Republican primary, bolstering his bid to unseat the incumbent US senator, John Cornyn. The US president praised Paxton, a hardliner who has pitched himself as a political warrior for Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again movement, as an \u201cAmerica First Patriot\u201d in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}