Trump Plays Santa Claus for Texas Dems
with Shafting of Cornyn in Senate Runoff
Texas Primary Runoff Predictions - General Election Rankings
Texas Primary Runoff & General Election Polls
Capitol Inside
May 24, 2026
Texan Lyndon Johnson knew that he'd handed the South to the Republicans on a silver platter after he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act into law in his first full year as the president in 1964. Now President Donald Trump - 62 years later - may have set the stage for the Republican Party's fall from power in Texas after three decades of GOP rule with an endorsement that he issued last week to Attorney General Ken Paxton for a U.S. Senate runoff election on Tuesday.
LBJ didn't have to be a prophet with magic powers to understand the significance of the package of legislation that paved the way for the Voting Rights Act and other reforms that sought to end rampant racial discrimination in the United States. Johnson didn't like the idea of hurting the Democratic Party anywhere. It was a sacrifice that Johnson felt like he had to make for the good of the country.
Trump - in contrast - demonstrated that he simply doesn't give a damn about the future of the GOP in Texas or anywhere else when he rallied with massive fanfare behind the candidate in the Senate race who would bring more baggage to the fight than any candidate has had to shoulder in a statewide race here in modern times.
Trump's snubbing of veteran U.S. Senator John Cornyn in favor of the Texas AG who he'd always really supported was a godsend for the Texas Democrats and James Talarico in particular as the party's nominee for the post for which the president is pushing Paxton openly now. Cornyn spent the past three months trying to warn GOP voters that he was the only Republican who could beat Talarico in the general election in November. A Paxton victory over Cornyn in OT on the strength of the Trump endorsement doesn't mean that the Democratic state representative from Austin will be guaranteed to win in the fall.
But Talarico has been leading both of the Republicans in the Senate runoff in polls for the general election - and he would appear to have an even chance against Paxton if the state lawyer emerges victoriously on Tuesday as widely expected since the boost from the president.
The prevailing sentiment here has been that Cornyn would be a far superior general election contender than Paxton. The attorney general on the other hand would be a dream matchup for the Democrats. Paxton has been charged with felonies, impeached on corruption charges by Texas House members from his own party and investigated by the FBI amid bribery allegations that a group of former aides lodged against him in a successful whistleblowers lawsuit. Paxton's wife who's a Republican state senator filed for divorce on "biblical" grounds amid tales of mistresses, infidelity, sweetheart deals with donors and a not-so-secret double life that he allegedly led at times as Dave P.
If Paxton proved to be as radioactive as a Senate nominee as Cornyn and fellow Senate Republicans in Washington D.C. fear, the GOP's candidates in potentially competitive races for the U.S. House and Texas House could find themselves in peril in contests they'd expected to run as significant favorites.
But Trump made it clear that he isn't concerned with the GOP or its long-term prospects when he picked the spurned the safest candidate for the party in the Senate race in favor of the candidate who he'd been rooting for all along while dangling the endorsement in front of the incumbent who needed it more.
Trump's endorsement for Paxton appeared to be inevitable from the vantage here. Paxton tried to overturn the 2020 election for Trump at the U.S. Supreme Court. Paxton hangs out at Mar-a-Lago. He's the real deal when it comes to MAGA. Trump could see through Cornyn's attempt to remake himself as a MAGA warrior as a desperation Hail Mary. But the president loved watching the 24-year U.S. Senate veteran grovel to the point of begging for an endorsement that had Paxton's name on it from the start.
Trump is a head hunter - and Cornyn's will be on a shelf with Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie - a pair of Republicans who felt the burn of the president's revenge in primary oustings in recent weeks. Cornyn - to his credit - has vowed that he won't go down without a fight.
Johnson the president from Texas in the 1960s was dead right on with the somber analysis on the political wages of civil rights. The GOP's Barry Goldwater - sure enough - carried Georgia and Louisiana that fall after Democrat John F. Kennedy won both states four years earlier with Johnson on the ticket as vice-president. After JFK beat Richard Nixon by 12 points in Mississippi in 1960, Goldwater crushed Johnson there with an astonishing 87 percent of the vote in 1964 when the former U.S. senator from the Lone Star State won everywhere else in a landslide.
The South going red in the 1960s was more of a sure thing than Texas going blue anytime soon. But a president is making that very possible here 62 years later - and you can bet he will be shedding no tears if and when it does.
Rankings Based on Overall Competitiveness, Significance for Fall
and the Candidates' Performances in the March 3 Primary Vote
 Projected Winner GOP |
 Projected Winner Dem |
|
|
| |
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% |
| |
|
| |
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% |
| |
|
| |
|
|
| |
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% |
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
| 
