Trump Said He Will Decide in Texas Soon and Conservatives Just Told Him Exactly What They Want

The Texas Senate runoff is 17 days away.

Trump still hasn't endorsed – and conservatives just made their preference impossible to ignore.

A clip of Trump telling reporters he'll decide "maybe relatively soon" between Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton went viral Thursday – and the poll that followed produced a near-unanimous answer from his base.

The Texas Senate Runoff Poll Result Trump's Followers Just Delivered

Conservatives piled into the replies demanding Paxton.

And they made clear exactly why Cornyn isn't getting their blessing.

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The flashpoint is the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. Cornyn didn't just vote for it – he was the lead Republican negotiator, personally recruiting the 15 GOP senators needed to pass the largest federal gun control package in nearly 30 years.

Biden signed it. Gun rights groups branded Cornyn a traitor. The Texas Republican Party formally rebuked him. Trump himself took to Truth Social and called Cornyn a RINO – writing that the deal would go down "in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY."

Cornyn has since tried to distance himself from the bill. When confronted on social media about his lead role in passing it, he replied with one word: "No."

Texas Gun Rights called that a flat-out lie.

The Second Amendment record isn't the only grievance. Conservatives hammered Cornyn's history on immigration – pointing to years of bipartisan deal-making as evidence he's more comfortable cutting deals with Democrats than defeating them.

Paxton, by contrast, built his reputation doing exactly what MAGA voters reward. He filed the original Supreme Court lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in four battleground states, drawing support from 17 other state attorneys general. He sued the Biden administration dozens of times. He was the loudest voice in Texas demanding the Senate eliminate the filibuster to pass Trump's Save America Act – before Cornyn had even budged on the issue.

That's the fighter Trump's base wants in the Senate.

Cornyn Gun Control Record Fuels Conservative Opposition

Trump's silence isn't indifference – it's leverage.

The president tied his endorsement directly to the Save America Act, his sweeping election integrity bill that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo ID at the polls. Both candidates scrambled to fall in line. Paxton had been pushing to kill the filibuster to pass it. Cornyn – a filibuster defender for decades – reversed course and announced he'd support "whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary" to get it done.

With both men saying exactly what Trump wanted to hear, the endorsement's leverage evaporated. The dropout deadline came and went without a pick. Now both names are locked on the May 26 ballot.

Paxton leads by 3.2 points in the RealClearPolitics average. Polls consistently show a Trump endorsement closes that gap to a coin flip – or flips it to Cornyn entirely.

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Democrats Are Watching the Texas Senate Race and Gaining Ground

Every day Trump waits is a day Democrats bank.

State Rep. James Talarico – the Democratic nominee – has been raising massive sums and organizing hard while Cornyn and Paxton burn through what remains of a primary war chest that already hit $100 million.

Texas hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. Republicans should own this race.

But the MAGA base just told Trump what kind of Republican they want protecting that seat – and it isn't the one who handed Biden his biggest gun control win in a generation.

The president says he'll decide relatively soon.

His followers already did.

Sources:

• Kevin Killough, "Trump Still Noncommittal on Cornyn, Paxton Endorsement, Says 'Maybe Relatively Soon,'" Just the News, May 8, 2026.
• Gabby Birenbaum, "Trump Stays Out of Texas Senate Runoff After Vowing Endorsement," Texas Tribune, April 7, 2026.
• "It's a Mess: With No Trump Endorsement in Texas Senate Race, Cornyn and Paxton Are Locked in an Expensive Brawl," CNN Politics, April 30, 2026.
• Abby Livingston, "How John Cornyn Got the Bipartisan Gun Bill Passed," Texas Tribune, June 27, 2022.
• "How John Cornyn's Historic Gun Safety Bill Has Become a Reelection Liability," KRGV, February 23, 2026.