With just hours to go until the deadline to remove a candidate’s name from the ballot, the Texas Republican Senate primary is barreling toward an expensive runoff campaign — despite President Donald Trump’s stated desire to avoid the prolonged intraparty warfare.
The day after the March 3 primary, when Sen. John Cornyn overperformed most polls to finish first ahead of Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump pledged to endorse one of the candidates “soon,” 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.
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Nearly two weeks have elapsed without a Trump endorsement. The deadline to withdraw one’s name from the Texas runoff ballot is Tuesday at 5 p.m. A candidate could still drop out of the race afterward, but barring a last-minute shake-up, the May 26 ballot will contain both candidates’ names.
Trump’s 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 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 “bad for him to say.”
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 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’s signature elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.
The measure would require people to show documentary proof of citizenship in person — either via a passport or birth certificate — when they register to vote, as well as show photo identification at the polls. Trump, who has said the bill would “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans, has also called for three provisions to be added to the measure — 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.
Tuesday’s deadline for candidates to withdraw from the runoff ballot falls on the same day that the U.S. Senate is set to take up the SAVE America Act — a convergence that highlights how the conversation around the Senate runoff has shifted in the two weeks since the primary.
There is little chance of passage for the bill through the Senate because of the filibuster, given that the Senate’s 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.
Paxton’s 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 — which would require Democrats to hold out against a vote by speaking indefinitely again the bill — and then wrote an op-ed last week reversing course, saying past Democratic willingness to abandon the filibuster convinced him it was worth scrapping it to pass the SAVE Act.
Even so, Paxton laid the bill’s likely failure at Cornyn’s feet.
“If the Save America Act fails, it will be because John Cornyn refused to truly fight to get it done,” Paxton said in a statement. “He’s campaigned on being Mr. Effective in the Swamp, and it’s time for him to put his money where his mouth is.”
Trump, meanwhile, has been less committal about the Texas runoff as time has gone on.
“I’ll let you know that over the next week or so,” Trump told 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.
“A lot has to do with the SAVE America Act,” he said. “A lot is going to determine — Republicans have to get that passed, because that will secure voting in this country.”
The president told NBC he appreciated Cornyn’s new filibuster stance, but said “I don’t know” when asked if the move had won him over. And Trump also cast doubt on the Cornyn campaign’s main argument — that the senator, who has been a strong general election performer, would be a better candidate in November than Paxton.
“I’ve heard that,” Trump said. “I don’t know. I don’t know that to be a fact.”