SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Voters in Texas saw little of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate on Monday — provided they stayed away from screens.
Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton had no public campaign events scheduled for the final day of their more-than-yearlong quest for the GOP nomination. Instead, their fight for Tuesday's runoff continued as it has for months — intense and unabated — through advertising that has topped $109 million, heavily from Cornyn's side.
Cornyn hosted an annual, non-campaign event in San Antonio to recognize high school graduates attending the nation's service academies. The senator seeking a fifth term held his last public campaign event in Corpus Christi on Friday, ahead of Tuesday’s voting.
Paxton headlined his last events Thursday in the Austin area and in San Antonio, content to let his campaign and a super PAC carry his primary message: that President Donald Trump endorsed him on May 19.
Trump's announcement and accompanying dismissal of Cornyn, who has had an awkward public relationship with the president, came on the second day of early voting, which ended Friday.
Though the candidates' campaigns were quiet over the weekend, Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sunday, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him.
Paxton, Trump posted on social media, “was also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” while calling Cornyn “VERY disloyal to me.” It was Trump's strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president's reproach of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy before he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary.
After Trump's jabs, Cornyn still leaned into his support for the president just before Monday's event. The senator said that 99.3% of his votes aligned with Trump, that he “wants him to be successful” and then he referenced Trump’s previous comments “where he called me a good man and a friend.”
As for endorsing his opponent, “obviously the president is entitled to make his pick," he said, but “Texans are a pretty independent breed and people will be making their own choices.”
Following Trump's call for retribution, Republican voters in Indiana and Kentucky have also chosen GOP primary challengers over incumbent GOP officeholders who have crossed the president or opposed his agenda.
For a contest that is expected to draw a fraction of Texas’ 18.7 million voters, the two candidates’ campaigns and supporting groups were continuing to bombard all Texans with advertising, though more by Cornyn's backers than Paxton's.
"It’s just a slug fest, with the campaigns and third-party groups slugging it out,” said Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.
The combination of Cornyn's campaign and supporting super PACs has far outspent pro-Paxton groups over the past year, by almost nine-to-one. But the gap has shrunk as the runoff has approached. In the final week of the campaign, the combination of pro-Cornyn ad spending was less than twice that of Paxton's group.
Cornyn's network continued to air spots attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions that have shadowed him with little effect throughout the campaign. The senator's consequent argument to voters is that Paxton would struggle in the general election and threaten to flip the seat blue.
“Paxton’s flaws and the baggage he brings to the general election is going to be exploited to the fullest by James Talarico,” he told reporters, before heading into Monday's ceremony and giving a speech devoid of campaign politics to the assembled graduates.
Cornyn’s campaign also had reprised an ad noting his tendency to vote in the Senate for Trump’s priorities.
Paxton's campaign and groups supporting him transitioned midweek to all ads noting Trump's endorsement, though Paxton's primary super PAC, Lone Star Liberty Fund, began airing one over the weekend aimed at raising questions about state Rep. James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate nominee.
