President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will be endorsing a candidate in the Texas GOP Senate primary in the near future, adding that he will ask the other candidate to step aside.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced to a runoff on Tuesday, after Cornyn pulled ahead with a narrow lead following a monthslong, bruising battle between the two Republicans.
Trump’s impending endorsement looms over the upcoming runoff — which could prolong an already expensive and bitter primary fight for 12 more weeks, unless somebody steps aside.
Trump wrote in a Wednesday afternoon social media post that the primary “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”
“We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who won the Democratic primary for Senate on Tuesday. “Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!”
Both Paxton and Cornyn have forcefully lobbied for the president’s support, with Paxton playing up his MAGA bona fides and Cornyn, a four-term incumbent, leaning on his support from party leadership, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The GOP primary has repeatedly devolved into vicious personal attacks, with the NRSC running ads calling Paxton a “wife-cheater and fraud” in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary election.
Democrats, meanwhile, are moving quickly to coalesce around Talarico after he defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Most Democrats believe Cornyn is a more formidable opponent than Paxton, whose scandal-ridden record makes him an easy foil for their hopes to turn Texas blue.
Trump’s announcement came just hours after Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Trump should endorse Cornyn “early” in the impending runoff.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Cornyn leads Paxton by a little over one percentage point, with 97 percent of estimated votes counted, according to The Associated Press.
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