A few weeks ago, we wrote about how Chris LaCivita's role inside John Cornyn's orbit functioned as a kind of proxy signal—a way for Trump-world credibility to flow into the Texas Senate primary without a formal endorsement from Trump himself.
Today, that dynamic shifted.
Trump officially endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the May 26 runoff, ending months of public neutrality in one of the most-watched Republican primaries of the 2026 cycle. The endorsement follows a March 3 primary in which neither Cornyn nor Paxton cleared 50 percent, forcing the extended contest.
Prior to the endorsement, two prominent figures from Trump's orbit had been active in the race on Cornyn's behalf: LaCivita, Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager, consulting for the Cornyn-aligned super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority, and Tony Fabrizio, Trump's personal pollster, advising the Cornyn campaign directly. Trump himself repeatedly declined to weigh in, saying publicly, "I support all three."
The Significance
In Republican primaries, a Trump endorsement has historically served as a decisive signal to voters, donors, and party infrastructure. Rice University political science professor Mark Jones noted before the primary that a Trump endorsement would "go a long way" toward determining the outcome—and potentially seal the result outright.
With the endorsement now behind Paxton, the May runoff becomes a direct test of that theory in one of the country's highest-profile Senate contests.
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