Cornyn fights to hold Texas Senate seat in runoff with Trump-backed Paxton – US politics live | Texas
Cornyn tries to hold on to Texas Senate seat in runoff with Trump-backed Paxton
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Texans are voting for a Republican nominee for US Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election, following Donald Trump’s late bid to influence the race in his latest effort to rid the GOP of figures who are less devoted to him.
The president’s endorsement of state attorney-general Ken Paxton over four-term senator John Cornyn gave the challenger a late boost, leaving Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.
It comes despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90m in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton, AP reported.
It’s the latest GOP contest where Trump has sought to punish a Republican he sees as insufficiently loyal. This month, he has successfully backed challengers to incumbents in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana – a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.
Paxton’s campaign and a pro-Paxton super PAC began airing ads promoting the endorsement within 24 hours of Trump’s announcement. Cornyn acknowledged Trump’s move would have an impact but said he wasn’t giving up.
“I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas,” he said hours after the endorsement. The winner will run in November against the Democratic candidate James Talarico.
Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic US House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats and a San Antonio-area seat the party hopes to flip.
In other developments:
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Iran has poured cold water on suggestions that a deal with the US is imminent, pointing to the confusion in US positions and Israeli interference as reasons why an agreement is proving difficult to secure. Speaking at the weekly foreign ministry press briefing, Esmail Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s negotiating team, also said future management of the strait of Hormuz was a matter for Oman and Iran to agree on, and that it was not tolls that were being proposed but “fees for navigational services”.
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By contrast, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that a deal was still possible, adding that the strait of Hormuz would open “one way or another”. “There were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress. I think it’s a lot of talking back and forth going on about specific language in the initial document,” Rubio told reporters in Jaipur during an official visit to India.
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A Trump Tower planned for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, is to be built on land currently part-owned by the son of the US-sanctioned leader of the country, according to official records. The proposed skyscraper, a joint venture between a local consortium and the Trump Organization, which is managed by the US president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will be on a plot whose current registered owner is the International Charity Fund Cartu.
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Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Monday her government agreed to allow the Iranian national football team to stay in Mexico during the World Cup, adding that the United States did not want to host the team. Sheinbaum said football’s governing body Fifa approached her government after the US said it did not want Iran’s squad to stay in the country throughout the tournament, despite Iran playing all three of its group matches there.
Key events
Trump administration considers asking federal workers to sign NDAs
President Trump’s administration floated a plan to ask federal workers to sign non-disclosure agreements, according to a government document released Tuesday, Reuters reported.
This is not the first time the administration has brought up non-disclosure agreements with federal workers.
Last year, after the administration fired federal workers in mass amounts for “poor performance,” they were asked to sign confidentiality agreements, but refused, the Guardian reported.
As Texas heads to the polls for the primaries, Trump reminded his supporters to vote for Attorney General Ken Paxton, amid other posts Tuesday Morning.
“Texas, Vote for Ken Paxton, our Country’s BEST Attorney General!” Trump posted.
Donald Trump and his motorcade have left the White House for his scheduled doctor’s visit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The White House described the visit as an annual preventative medical and dental checkups, AP reported.
This is Trump’s fourth visit to to Walter Reed since he returned to office for a second term, and comes as he is trying to project strength ahead of midterms.
Alexandra Villarreal
US immigration enforcement flights are producing hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions as officials shuttle unprecedented numbers of people to detention centers far from home and deport them to countries across the world.
Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has spurred at least an 80% increase in such flights year over year, accelerating the climate crisis by emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide, according to data analysis shared exclusively with the Guardian.
“We’ve seen a staggering increase of all US immigration [enforcement] flights,” including “the number of flights as well as the locations that the flights are going to,” said Savitri Arvey, director of research and analysis for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First (HRF), the US advocacy group.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) air operations pumped into the air an estimated 335,876 tonnes (37,0240 US tons) of carbon emissions in 2025, up 88% from the year before. And the first four months of 2026 show the federal agency is on track to contribute even more to global heating this year from such flights, the Guardian can reveal.
Those emissions exacerbate the climate crisis, a driver of irregular migration in itself, while polluting the air in local communities used as flight hubs, such as Phoenix, El Paso and Harlingen in Texas, and Alexandria in Louisiana.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the US, including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black US House districts.
In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.”
Some of the companies had co-signed their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.
That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.
Tyler Hicks
In the bitter and expensive US Senate runoff between John Cornyn, the incumbent, and Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, the state’s Muslim community has been a frequent target for campaign ads and legal challenges.
Both candidates have tried to portray the other as either too soft on the supposed threat of Islam or insufficiently aggressive toward Muslim institutions.
“Every time it’s an election year, this is one of the favorite cards that the GOP plays to get votes,” said Shehla Faizi, a Texas Muslim running for state comptroller as a member of the Green party. “We have a boogeyman, the boogeyman are Muslims, and we’re going to use that to make people afraid and force them to vote for us.”
Yet the many experts and advocates interviewed for this story all agreed that the frequency and vitriol of this year’s anti-Islam attacks seems to have reached a fever pitch – an observation backed up by data.
Specifically, Paxton and Paxton-allied groups ran ads accusing Cornyn of supporting “Muslim mass immigration” and having “a special place in his heart for radical Islam”. Cornyn, meanwhile, has responded by emphasizing his record “fighting radical Islamic extremism” and drafting a bill aimed at “[stopping] the spread of Sharia Law in the U.S.”
Even though the Senate campaign will come to an end with the 26 May election, Texas Muslims say Republican politicians are fanning the flames of anti-Muslim bigotry that’s already been at the center of many racist incidents in Texas.
Michael Sainato
Nearly 200,000 US truck drivers are at risk of losing their commercial driver’s licenses after the US Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a new rule that disqualifies many foreign-born truck drivers from getting or renewing their licenses.
Tens of thousands of immigrant drivers are stuck in a limbo after the rule took effect in March, and lawsuits challenging the rule are still being reviewed by federal courts.
The rule restricts licenses to immigrants who have specific employment authorization statuses, disqualifying those with other authorizations, including asylum seekers, refugees and those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) status.
The rule has shaken immigrant drivers who have spent years dedicated to the industry.
Sarabjeet Singh, a truck driver from India who has worked in central California for the past 12 years, said he attempted to renew his license last month when it expired but was turned away.
Kavita Patel, Singh’s wife, said the loss of his license has been devastating for their whole family.
“This not only affected us financially, but this is a huge burden mentally, emotionally, physically,” she said. “People think you can just find another job, but your entire skill set [and] experience has been built around driving this big rig.”
“It’s kind of a fear and helplessness that comes from waking up one day and realizing, ‘Oh, guess what, your career that you built is suddenly all gone in one night,’” she added.
Trump scheduled to see doctors for his annual physical
President Donald Trump is scheduled to get a medical exam on Tuesday, putting his health under renewed public scrutiny after he has worked to dismiss concerns over his age and stamina.
The 79-year-old president is scheduled to visit Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as annual preventative medical and dental checkups, AP reported.
It will be Trump’s fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office for a second term, and comes as he tries to project strength ahead of midterm elections that will test his sway with voters.
Trump turns 80 next month and was the oldest person elected US president. His predecessor, former president Joe Biden, was 82 when he left office, dropping out of the 2024 presidential race because of widespread concerns he was too old for the job.
A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that less than half of US adults think Trump has the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.
David Smith
Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, takes on four-term incumbent John Cornyn on Tuesday in the ugliest primary election of the year. The winner of the Republican Senate runoff in Texas will contest November’s general election against Democrat James Talarico.
Paxton and Cornyn have spent months coveting the most valuable endorsement in Republican politics: Donald Trump. Last week, scandal-plagued Paxton got it, with the US president describing him as “a true Maga warrior”.
Supporters in McKinney, Texas, agree. “Paxton is more conservative,” said Jim Tubbesing, 77, strolling in Paxton’s home town, a tranquil vision of Americana with cute antique shops, trendy bistros and a walkable historic downtown exuding 19th-century charm.
“He has been good for Texas. I vote for the policy, not the fact that he’s alleged to have done something.” Tubbesing, calling Cornyn a “Rino: Republican in name only.”
The runoff is not fundamentally about policy, since Cornyn and Paxton would vote the same way on almost every piece of legislation. It is more about vibe and style, and has huge implications for Texas, control of the US Senate, and the future direction of the Republican party.
Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and state supreme court justice, is widely seen as a last gasp of the Republican establishment. In a primary on 3 March, he narrowly beat Paxton, a far-right hardliner who has been impeached and indicted. But those aggressive stances on immigration and culture war issues appeal to the party’s base. But both men qualified for the runoff.
Cornyn tries to hold on to Texas Senate seat in runoff with Trump-backed Paxton
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Texans are voting for a Republican nominee for US Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election, following Donald Trump’s late bid to influence the race in his latest effort to rid the GOP of figures who are less devoted to him.
The president’s endorsement of state attorney-general Ken Paxton over four-term senator John Cornyn gave the challenger a late boost, leaving Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.
It comes despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90m in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton, AP reported.
It’s the latest GOP contest where Trump has sought to punish a Republican he sees as insufficiently loyal. This month, he has successfully backed challengers to incumbents in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana – a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.
Paxton’s campaign and a pro-Paxton super PAC began airing ads promoting the endorsement within 24 hours of Trump’s announcement. Cornyn acknowledged Trump’s move would have an impact but said he wasn’t giving up.
“I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas,” he said hours after the endorsement. The winner will run in November against the Democratic candidate James Talarico.
Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic US House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats and a San Antonio-area seat the party hopes to flip.
In other developments:
-
Iran has poured cold water on suggestions that a deal with the US is imminent, pointing to the confusion in US positions and Israeli interference as reasons why an agreement is proving difficult to secure. Speaking at the weekly foreign ministry press briefing, Esmail Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s negotiating team, also said future management of the strait of Hormuz was a matter for Oman and Iran to agree on, and that it was not tolls that were being proposed but “fees for navigational services”.
-
By contrast, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that a deal was still possible, adding that the strait of Hormuz would open “one way or another”. “There were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress. I think it’s a lot of talking back and forth going on about specific language in the initial document,” Rubio told reporters in Jaipur during an official visit to India.
-
A Trump Tower planned for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, is to be built on land currently part-owned by the son of the US-sanctioned leader of the country, according to official records. The proposed skyscraper, a joint venture between a local consortium and the Trump Organization, which is managed by the US president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will be on a plot whose current registered owner is the International Charity Fund Cartu.
-
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Monday her government agreed to allow the Iranian national football team to stay in Mexico during the World Cup, adding that the United States did not want to host the team. Sheinbaum said football’s governing body Fifa approached her government after the US said it did not want Iran’s squad to stay in the country throughout the tournament, despite Iran playing all three of its group matches there.
