{"id":6455,"date":"2026-03-17T22:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6455\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T22:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:44:09","slug":"cornyn-paxton-locked-in-for-runoff-ballot-after-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6455\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornyn, Paxton locked in for runoff ballot after deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The deadline for Republican candidates to remove their name from the primary runoff ballot quietly passed at 5 p.m. Tuesday without any movement from Sen. John Cornyn or Attorney General Ken Paxton, sending Texas\u2019 GOP Senate primary barreling toward another period of expensive intraparty warfare.<\/p>\n

The day after the March 3 primary, when Cornyn overperformed most polls to finish first ahead of Paxton, President Donald Trump pledged<\/a> to endorse one of the candidates \u201csoon,\u201d saying the party should unify to focus on fighting the Democratic nominee, Austin state Rep. James Talarico. And Trump issued a warning as well, saying he would ask his non-endorsed candidate to drop out.<\/p>\n

Nearly two weeks have elapsed without a Trump endorsement. And with the 5 p.m.\u00a0 deadline to withdraw one\u2019s name from the Texas runoff ballot now passed, the May 26 ballot is assured to contain both candidates\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s initial announcement appeared auspicious for Cornyn, whose allies, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have repeatedly urged Trump to back the senior senator, arguing Paxton would be a liability in November and siphon millions in national GOP spending from other states. Multiple outlets reported<\/a> that the president intended to back Cornyn; when Paxton said he did not plan to drop out even if he did not receive the endorsement, Trump shot back that the statement was \u201cbad for him to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

But two days after the election, Paxton issued an ultimatum of his own, centering the debate around a policy issue already firing up the GOP base. The attorney general said<\/a> he would consider dropping out if Senate Republicans scrapped the filibuster, a procedural tool that requires most legislation to receive 60 votes to pass, in order to enact the GOP\u2019s signature elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.<\/p>\n

The measure would require people to show documentary proof of citizenship in person \u2014 either via a passport or birth certificate \u2014 when they register to vote, as well as show photo identification at the polls. Trump, who has said the bill would \u201cguarantee the midterms\u201d for Republicans, has also called for three provisions to be added to the measure \u2014 a federal end to most mail-in voting, a ban on transgender athletes playing on teams that align with their gender identity and ending gender-affirming procedures for minors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s deadline for candidates to withdraw from the runoff ballot falls on the same day that the U.S. Senate took up the SAVE America Act \u2014 a convergence that highlights how the conversation around the Senate runoff has shifted in the two weeks since the primary.<\/p>\n

Cornyn voted with 50 other Senate Republicans to open debate on the bill Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

There is little chance of passage for the bill through the Senate because of the filibuster, given that the Senate\u2019s 47 Democrats are uniformly opposed to it, calling the voting provisions a modern day poll tax. Republicans do not have enough support to overhaul the filibuster so that they could pass the bill with support from a simple majority. But they are beginning debate on the bill today, putting it squarely in the center of the news cycle.<\/p>\n

Paxton\u2019s offer centered the runoff discourse around the SAVE Act, which Cornyn supports, and the filibuster, of which the senior senator had long been a defender. Cornyn first announced his support for a talking filibuster \u2014 which would require Democrats to hold out against a vote by speaking indefinitely again the bill \u2014 and then wrote an op-ed<\/a> last week reversing course, saying past Democratic willingness to abandon the filibuster convinced him it was worth scrapping it to pass the SAVE Act.<\/p>\n

Even so, Paxton laid the bill\u2019s likely failure at Cornyn\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Save America Act fails, it will be because John Cornyn refused to truly fight to get it done,\u201d Paxton said. \u201cHe\u2019s campaigned on being Mr. Effective in the Swamp, and it\u2019s time for him to put his money where his mouth is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, meanwhile, has been less committal about the Texas runoff as time has gone on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll let you know that over the next week or so,\u201d Trump told<\/a> NBC News Saturday when asked if he would endorse Cornyn, adding that he has always liked him. But in an acknowledgment of how critical the SAVE Act has become to the runoff, Trump said it would affect his endorsement.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot has to do with the SAVE America Act,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot is going to determine \u2014 Republicans have to get that passed, because that will secure voting in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president told NBC he appreciated Cornyn\u2019s new filibuster stance, but said \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d when asked if the move had won him over. And Trump also cast doubt on the Cornyn campaign\u2019s main argument \u2014 that the senator, who has been a strong general election performer, would be a better candidate in November than Paxton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard that,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know that to be a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[432,38,286,8,290,291,9,7,292,508],"class_list":{"0":"post-6455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-congress","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-john-cornyn","13":"tag-ken-paxton","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-u-s-senate","17":"tag-well-c-homepage"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116246941721405932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}