Texas GOP Senate candidates scarce in public but unavoidable on TV in final day of runoff campaign

PLANO, Texas (AP) — Voters in Texas will see little of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate on Monday. But that’s only if they stay away from screens.

There were no public campaign events scheduled for Sen. John Cornyn nor state Attorney General Ken Paxton on the final day of their more than yearlong quest for the GOP nomination. Instead, their fight for Tuesday’s runoff continues as it has for months — intense and unabated — through advertising that has topped $109 million, heavily from Cornyn’s side.

Cornyn is scheduled to host an annual, non-campaign event in San Antonio to recognize high school graduates attending the nation’s service academies. The senator seeking a fifth term held his last public campaign event in Corpus Christi on Friday, ahead of Tuesday’s voting.

Paxton headlined his last events Thursday in the Austin area and in San Antonio, content to let his campaign and a super PAC carry his primary message: that President Donald Trump endorsed him on May 19.

Trump’s announcement and accompanying dismissal of Cornyn, who has had an awkward public relationship with the president, came on the second day of early voting, which ended Friday.

Though the candidates were quiet over the weekend, Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sunday, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him.

Paxton, Trump posted on social media, “was also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” while calling Cornyn “VERY disloyal to me.” It was Trump’s strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president’s reproach of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy before he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary.

Following Trump’s call for retribution, Republican voters in Indiana and Kentucky have also chosen GOP primary challengers over incumbent GOP officeholders who have crossed the president or opposed his agenda.

For a contest that is expected to draw a fraction of Texas’ 18.7 million voters, the two candidates’ campaigns and supporting groups were continuing to bombard all Texans with advertising, though more by Cornyn’s backers than Paxton’s.

It’s “just a slug fest, with the campaigns and third-party groups slugging it out,” said Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.

The combination of Cornyn’s campaign and supporting super PACs have far outspent pro-Paxton groups over the past year, by almost nine-to-one. But the gap has shrunk as the runoff has approached. In the final week of the campaign, the combination of pro-Cornyn ad spending was less than twice Paxton’s group.

Cornyn’s network continued to air spots attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions that have shadowed him with little effect throughout the campaign. Cornyn’s campaign also had reprised an ad noting his tendency to vote in the Senate for Trump’s priorities.

Paxton’s campaign and groups supporting him transitioned midweek to all ads noting Trump’s endorsement, though Paxton’s primary super PAC, Lone Star Liberty Fund, began airing one over the weekend aimed at raising questions about state Rep. James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate nominee.