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What are the national implications of the Cornyn-Paxton race in Texas? 58%
5/26/2026, 11:50:58 PM
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As we've been reporting, Republican voters in Texas are casting their ballots in the most expensive Senate primary on record.
Incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn is facing off against State Attorney General Ken Paxton.
President Trump endorsed Paxton this last week.
Whoever wins the runoff will go up against Democratic nominee James Tallarico in November.
Let's bring in CBS News Executive Director of Elections and Surveys Anthony Salvanto.
What are you watching for tonight, Anthony?
So, the big picture big context here for everybody watching nationwide is does Texas Senate end up on the battleground list of places to watch when we get to November?
So, I'll show you that list right now.
You see there's not a lot of states on here that fight for Senate control.
Do we add Texas to this?
Well, Democrats would like to think so, but they haven't won Texas in generations.
So, part of >> Generations?
Yeah, yeah, going back to the going back to the 90s here.
When a Democrat won statewide.
So, what we're really looking at then is how do we set up that race?
And one of the things that we've noticed is if you look at the way this breaks down we'll watch tonight, you've got pretty strong turnout so far in the advance vote, but I'm going to take you back to the initial primary because this is a runoff tonight.
So, if I take you back to that, you saw John Cornyn the incumbent actually had a little bit of an edge there on John Paxton in the initial.
They didn't get 50% which is why we're here.
Now, if Cornyn can replicate that vote of course then would advantage him.
So far we've got we're on track tonight for about 1.6 million votes which is just under the 2.1 that was cast there.
So, he's not there yet, not there yet on the one to one.
That's going to be something to watch for and the reason I say that is this.
In smaller electorates you often get more ideological voters.
The more ideological ones, maybe in this case the more MAGA voters, if they turn out because the president his endorsement of Paxton, then that would advantage Paxton, and that's how we watch this.
>> How do you measure that?
The endorsement?
>> Mhm.
Well, let me show you this.
And this is national, but I'm going to go back to our last poll.
And that's going to be when you ask Republicans nationwide what they want in a candidate, well, you look at mega Republicans, and nine in 10 of them say they want somebody that supports at least most, if not everything Donald Trump wants.
So, that's number one.
And number two is going to be when I go back to the Texas map, and I look at that, you're going to see if Paxton is able to replicate, if in fact Trump's endorsement helped him, if he's able to replicate or even do better in areas that he did not previously.
And so, that would indicate a a difference.
If he's able to essentially flip, it'll take, you know, a couple a couple 10,000, 20,000 votes, but if he's able to flip enough people that that endorsement made a difference in the areas where he was behind before.
Do you dream of the big board?
>> [laughter] >> I feel like these slides are like your second skin.
Like I ask you something and you're like, "Oh, I've got that right here."
There's a lot of stuff in here, so you ask great questions, and hopefully, you know, I can pull it up and try to answer.
>> And the meter, you're welcome anytime with that kind of flattery.
Thank you.
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