Cornyn-Paxton Duel Biggest Texas Runoff
Since LBJ Senate Vote Some Say He Stole
Texas Primary Runoff Predictions - General Election Rankings
Texas Primary Runoff & General Election Polls
Capitol Inside
May 24, 2026
Cornyn Won't Commit to Paxton
for Fall in Texas Senate Battle
as Trump Alleges Disloyalty
The high drama intensified in Texas on Sunday in an epic U.S. Senate runoff when incumbent gave the impression he may not support Ken Paxton in November in a move that could be fatal for the GOP's hopes for holding the seat.
Cornyn refused to say that he'd fall in line behind the Texas attorney general if he's the Senate nominee after President Donald Trump accused the incumbent of extreme disloyalty in a Truth Social post.
Trump's pounding of the 24-year Senate veteran came after the president called Cornyn a good man who simply hadn't always been as supportive as he'd expected of the GOP members in Congress.
Cornyn speculated that Trump chose Paxton as a way to send a message to Senate Republican leaders to drop the roadblocks to president priorities that they've hoisted up in the past week or so. But Cornyn would not commit to backing Paxton in the event he wins on Tuesday as a new prohibitive favorite on the strength of the Trump plug.
Paxton "was very loyal to your favorite president, ME, as the Democrats played their ultimate game of Weaponization, and failed BADLY!" Trump contended in the post. "Ken's opponent was VERY disloyal to me, as President, and didn't fight hard enough for the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT - VOTER I.D., PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP, NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (with exceptions for Military, ilness, Disability, or Travel)."
Trump outburst on Cornyn poured more fuel into a dumpster fire that the Texas Senate runoff for the Republicans has become since he endorsed Paxton six days before the overtime election on Tuesday.
Polls have shown that anywhere from 10 percent to 25 percent of Cornyn voters say they won't vote for Paxton if he's the Senate nominee. Cornyn supporters who refuse to support Paxton have indicated they would either skip the race or cast their votes for James Talarico as the Democratic nominee.
U.S. Senator Thom Tillis - a North Carolina Republican - praised Cornyn in a television interview on Sunday when he blasted the Texas AG. “He’s a failure," Tillis said of Paxton. "He doesn't deserve to be in the US Senate.”
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Texas voters go to the polls again on Tuesday for the hottest primary runoff in the Lone Star State in nearly 80 years with Republican Ken Paxton as the favorite over longtime U.S. Senator John Cornyn in a fight that President Donald Trump hijacked last week with an eleventh-hour endorsement for the challenger.
The Republican fight card for round two of the midterm elections in Texas also features statewide races for attorney general and railroad commissioner that have been fiercely competitive and could be affected in the general election by the Trump endorsement in the U.S. Senate runoff. GOP State Senator Mayes Middleton has appeared to have the edge over U.S. Rep. Chip Roy in overtime when Texas Railroad Commission Jim Wright faces Bo French in a battle that the challenger has a decent shot to win.
The Democratic runoff ballot contains a pair of statewide races that have remained under the radar for the most part with State Rep. Vikki Goodwin and State Senator Nathan Johnson widely expected to win nominations for lieutenant governor and attorney general respectively after posing big leads over foes in round one.
But the Senate runoff for the Republicans has been a battle for the ages with the chamber's leaders in Washington D.C. pleading with Trump for months on why Cornyn's re-election was critical to the fate of the president's agenda at the nation's capitol and the future of the Republican Party in Texas. The overtime fights for offices on the GOP's statewide slate has been the most competitive since 2014 when Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick ousted the incumbent David Dewhurst and Paxton defeated Dan Branch in his first bid for AG. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz won his first trip to D.C. in 2012 when he came from behind to beat Dewhurst in a runoff election.
One of the Democrats' most spirited and bruising primary runoffs erupted in 1990 when Ann Richards defeated then-Attorney General Jim Mattox in an epic fight for the nomination in the race for governor that she went on to win as the last member of her party to ever hold the job. The Democratic primary field in 1990 included the party's most recent previous governor - Mark White - who finished third.
The Cornyn-Paxton duel is the most intensely competitive primary runoff in Texas since Lyndon B. Johnson defeated the former governor Coke Stevenson by 87 votes in 1948 in a fight for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate that the winner's critics accused him of stealing. Johnson had been one of the Senate's most powerful members before John F. Kennedy enlisted him for the vice-president's part on the national ticket in 1960. Johnson assumed the presidency after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
While the GOP's Senate runoff has dominated the spotlight for the past three months, overtime duels for the major parties in a dramatically refashioned Congressional District 35 are the second round's most important contests on a map that GOP lawmakers in Austin drew last summer at Trump's command with five seats targeted for flipping by the Republicans this year.
Alamo City Democrat Johnny Garcia appears poised for an easy win over first-round leader Maureen Galindo in a runoff in CD 35 while GOP State Rep. John Lujan of San Antonio fights to protect an initial lead over Carlos De La Cruz in an overtime match in the race for the seat. The second most significant U.S. House battle on the GOP runoff pits March primary leader Alex Mealer against State Rep. Briscoe Cain in Congressional District 9 in the Houston area.
The Democratic ballot in Tuesday's election also includes a pair of congressional races with incumbents on the defensive in the Houston and Dallas areas. U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson of Dallas is fighting to keep a seat in the U.S. House in a Democratic runoff in Congressional District 33 with predecessor Colin Allred, the party's nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2024. Johnson's current seat in Congressional District 32 underwent radical changes as a target on the new map - prompting her to seek a new term in CD 33 instead. Allred appeared to plan to run for the U.S. Senate again this year before deferring to U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who lost to State Rep. James Talarico in the Democratic primary election for the federal post. Allred implied that Talarico had disrespected him - and the current Senate nominee for the Democrats has campaigned for Johnson in CD 33 in a move that could be risky.
The Congressional District 18 runoff on the Democrats' ballot this week pits a pair of Black lawmakers against each other with the current representative, Christian Menefee, dueling veteran U.S. Rep. Al Green in overtime. Congressional District 9 was remade last year in Austin for Republicans - prompting Green to run for re-election in CD 18.
Democratic State Reps. Venton Jones of Dallas and Hubert Vo of Houston are squaring off at the polls on Tuesday with challengers Amanda Richardson and Darlene Breaux in House District 100 and Houston District 149 respetively. Jones fell one point short of an outright victory in the primary election with 49 percent. Vo appears to face a more imposing challenge in round two after leading Breaux in the first round by 3 votes out of nearly 10,000 that were cast in the HD 149 race in March. Vo advanced to OT with 37.53 percent of the initial vote in HD 149 when Breaux qualified for the runoff with 37.50 percent.
Vo is one of the House's longest-serving members - having been elected to the chamber initially in 2004 when he ousted a Republican who chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee. Vo's family fled their homeland in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in the 1970s. Jones is an openly gay legislator who's Black.
Runoffs also will be decided on both sides of the aisle on Tuesday in House District 41 - which is located entirely in heavily-Hispanic Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley. HD 41 could have been in the GOP's reach if Trump was as strong in South Texas border areas as he'd been in 2024 when he carried them in a first for a Republican. The HD 41 seat appears relatively safe for the Democrats, however, this time around as a consequence of Trump's collapse in popularity among Latino voters. Democratic State Rep. Bobby Guerra is giving HD 41 without a re-election bid in 2026.
Rankings Based on Overall Competitiveness, Significance for Fall
and the Candidates' Performances in the March 3 Primary Vote
 Projected Winner GOP |
 Projected Winner Dem |
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STATEWIDE |
| 1 |
U.S. Senate (R)
John Cornyn (I) 42.0%
Ken Paxton 40.5% |
| 2 |
Attorney General (R)
Mayes Middleton 39.1%
Chip Roy 31.6% |
| 3 |
Texas RRC (R)
Jim Wright (I) 32.1%
Bo French 31.8% |
| 4 |
Lieutenant Governor (D)
Vikki Goodwin 48.0%
Marcos Velez 31.5% |
| 5 |
Attorney General (D)
Nathan Johnson 48.1%
Joe Jaworski 26.4% |
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LEGISLATURE |
| 1 |
House District 37 (D)
Ozzie Ochoa Jr. 46.0%
Esmi Cantu-Castle 32.0% |
| 2 |
House District 41 (D)
Julio Salinas 39.0%
Victor Haddad 37.0% |
| 3 |
House District 41 (R)
Sergio Sanchez 46.0%
Gary Groves 38.0% |
| 4 |
House District 149 (D)
Hubert Vo (I) 38.0%
Darlene Breaux 38.0% |
| 5 |
House District 100 (D)
Venton Jones (I) 49.0%
Amanda Richardson 35.0% |
| 6 |
House District 125 (D)
Adrian Reyna 39.0%
Michelle Vela 34.0% |
| 7 |
House District 131 (D)
Staci Childs 45.0%
Lawrene Allen 28.0% |
| 8 |
House District 126 (R)
Stan Stanart 49.0%
Kelly Peterson 29.0% |
| 9 |
House District 49 (D)
Montserrat Garibay 33.0%
Kathie Tovo 28.0% |
| 10 |
House District 97 (D)
Diane Symons 42.0%
Beth McLaugnlin 30.0% |
| 11 |
House District 40 (R)
Celeste Cabrera-Huff 38,0%
Nehemias Gomez 37.0% |
| 12 |
Senate District 19 (R)
Marcus Cardenas 44.0%
Robert Marks Jr. 32.0% |
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CONGRESSIONAL |
| 1 |
Congress District 35 (D)
Maureen Galindo 29.2%
Johnny Garcia 27.0% |
| 2 |
Congress District 35 (R)
John Lujan 33.0%
Carlos De La Cruz 26.8% |
| 3 |
Congress District 9 (R)
Alex Mealer 35.8%
Briscoe Cain 31.2% |
| 4 |
Congress District 33 (D)
Colin Allred 44.0%
Julie Johnson (I) 33.2% |
| 5 |
Congress District 18 (D)
Christian Menefee 46.1%
Al Green (I) 44.2% |
| 6 |
Congress District 19 (R)
Tom Sell 40.4%
Abraham Enriquez 18.8% |
| 7 |
Congress District 32 (R)
Jace Yarbrough 49.0%
Ryan Binkley 21.7% |
| 8 |
Congress District 38 (R)
Jon Bonck 46.8%
Shelly deZevallos 18.8% |
| 9 |
Congress District 24 (D)
Kevin Burge 48.0%
TJ Ware 26.1% |
| 10 |
Congress District 7 (R)
Alexander Hale 45.3%
Tina Cohen 26.8% |
| 11 |
Congress District 37 (R)
Ge'Nell Gary 35.3%
Lauren Pena 35.0% |
| 12 |
Congress District 5 (D)
Chelsey Hockett 45.9%
Ruth "Truth" Torres 41.6% |
| 13 |
Congress District 16 (R)
Adam Bauman 27.9%
Manuel Barraza 21.1% |
| 14 |
Congress District 30 (R)
Everett Jackson 38.0%
Sholdon Daniels 24.3% |
| 15 |
Congress District 33 (R)
Patrick Gillespie 35.5%
John Sims 22.3% |
| 16 |
Congress District 17 (D)
Milah Flores 42.6%
Casey Shepard 32.4% |
| 17 |
Congress District 14 (D)
Richard H. Davis 44.3%
Thurman Bill Bartie 31.3% |
| 18 |
Congress District 1 (D)
Yolanda Prince 44.5%
Dax Alexander 22.0% |
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