President Trump's political advisers expect him to endorse Senator John Cornyn in Texas's May 26 Republican-primary runoff election following the incumbent's better-than-expected finish against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the first round of voting yesterday, three people briefed on the deliberations told us. Trump declined to get involved in the race before the first round of voting, and Republican Senate strategists had been worried that he wouldn't endorse Cornyn, who has been critical of the president in the past. Strategists have also warned that Paxton, a scandal-scarred favorite of Trump's MAGA base, would need more money from top GOP donors than Cornyn would require to defeat the Democratic nominee, James Talarico. Estimates of the added cost of Paxton being the nominee in the general election range from about $80 million to more than $200 million, according to several top strategists, given the Democrats' ability to raise massive sums of money in the state from...
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