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Wednesday June 03, 2026
AUSTIN (AP) – A new state policy that bans prison inmates from receiving hardback books and used books will curb contrabands that enter into facilities, according to state officials, but advocates and some inmates say the latest policy significantly expands the thousands of books already banned from prisoners.
“My concern is that they are restricting access to really, really important things, information, ideas to prisoners as a way to say they’re doing something,” said Laney Hawes, co-founder of Texas Freedom to Read Project.
TDCJ is no longer accepting any donated books, instead funneling donations through Windham school district hardback books, which provides educational services to prisoners. Additionally, inmates can no longer receive hardback or used books sent directly to them unless they are first reviewed and distributed by the district, which book and criminal justice advocates say will result in fewer material reaching inmates.
“Windham School District’s book donation process includes review of hardcover, softback and used books,” district spokesperson Danielle Nicholes said. “Windham reviews books for quality and suitability.”
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice implemented the policy in April after 385 books that entered prisons tested positive for synthetic drugs last year. Those drugs included meth, fentanyl, marijuana, and PCP, which can be turned into liquid and sprayed on books and sniffed.
The agency is banning hardback books because they are harder to scan for contraband and in used books, officials sometimes can’t detect the difference between a coffee stain and tampered pages with the testing kits and software they use. TDCJ received 450,000 books last year — many of them are donated or sent in by family members.
“This is literally a matter of life and death for us here at the agency, we had to look at every single step that we could take to prevent that dangerous contraband from coming in, taking more lives and hurting more folks, and that’s both staff and incarcerated individuals,” said Timothy Fitzpatrick, director of classification and records at TDCJ.
In 2025, there were 129 overdoses of inmates; it’s not clear how many of those overdoses involved drugs found in books.
Book and prison advocates say such a blanket measure is unnecessary because nonprofits, such as Austin-based Inside Book Project, inspect their books closely for contraband before they donate them or send them directly to inmates. The inmates they work with say the policy unfairly punishes them because TDCJ staff also are responsible for bringing in contraband. TDCJ officials said none of the 385 books flagged last year were brought in by staff.
Advocates say the latest policy is a book ban cloaked as a safety measure.
“But one of the biggest concerns we had is, did they bring in all the solutions they could, or did they just say, let’s just make the easiest solution we can and just say this and this,” Hawes said.
Texas bans 10,827 book titles from prisoners, including The Color Purple, Alex Cross, and ’Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky. Banned categories include books that facilitate an escape and criminal schemes; demonstrate how to manufacture weapons, explosives, or drugs; incite violence; and contain nudity or sex.
Fitzpatrick said banning those titles as well as curbing hardback books and used books is to ensure that incarcerated individuals aren’t exposed to dangerous information or substances.
TDCJ developed the list “through literally decades of review and discussion and consideration,” Fitzpatrick said.
Inside Book Project sends between 30,000 and 40,000 books per year to TDCJ and about 80% of them are donated from the public. Most of the books the organization sends to inmates are used and about 15% of them are hardcover. The organization has already turned away hundreds of donated books because of the new policy.
“It’s going to mean we’re going to be spending a lot more money purchasing books, and also going to be forced to restrict what we’re sending people like a lot of trade books are hardcover, a lot of legal books are hardcover and textbooks,” said Scott Odierno, the organization’s coordinator.
He said his organization checks books twice before sending them to TDCJ and his group rarely finds contraband hidden in the pages. But, TDCJ destroys many of Inside Book Project’s donated books over discolored pages and “unknown substances” without the agency saying if it ever verified that the books contained illicit chemicals, Odierno said.
“We have a very rigid policy of checking all of our books for any contraband and things like that. So, we’ve gone above and beyond what they’ve required for years, but it feels like they take advantage of the resources we provide,” Odierno said.
According to TDCJ, in addition to inspections by mailroom staff and K9s, books sent to inmates are also placed in a machine that looks for abnormalities within the cover and pages, such as a stain or items hidden inside the book, according to TDCJ. Books with abnormalities are then further inspected and tested for illegal substances.
Some of the letters that Odierno have received from inmates and reviewed by The Texas Tribune include complaints about how under the new measure, prisoners with more money can afford to buy new books while indigent inmates will not, creating inequities. Inmates can buy digital books that they can read on tablets.
Another complained that the measure punishes inmates for the actions of “a few,” including TDCJ staff who inmates accuse of smuggling in contraband as well.
Contraband can enter facilities from being tossed over the perimeter fencing, smuggled in by visitors and through the mail. In the past, they have often come from TDCJ staff, although none were caught sneaking in contraband with books last year, according to agency spokesperson Amanda Hernandez.
“We know that some (contraband is) coming in through our staff, and when we find them doing it, they are walked off a unit, arrested for all of those things,” she said.
Under the new policy, if inmates receive a hardback or used book, they will have 90 days to send the books elsewhere or the books will be destroyed.
Any book donations will now need to be sent to Windham where they have a process in place to accept, deny, and distribute donated books.
Although TDCJ says it’s been collaborating more with advocacy groups in recent years, Texas Freedom to Read and Inside Books Project, which has worked with the state for 27 years, want more conversations with the agency before it implements more policies that reduce literature and learning materials to inmates.
“If books really are changing lives, then this prevents some of that rehabilitation. This prevents some of that growth,” Hawes said. “This prevents some of the solace and the safety and the peace. In a place that may not have a whole lot of that, and we want to find ways to give more of that and not less.”
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
AUSTIN, Texas (The Texas Tribune) — Texas’ law requiring app marketplace operators like Google and Apple to verify all users’ ages and seek parental permission before minors can download apps or make in-app purchases can go into effect for now, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a temporary injunction issued by a federal district judge in Austin, who wrote in December that the restrictions in Texas’ law likely violated the First Amendment. The 5th Circuit panel did not explain its reasoning for issuing the decision, which can still be reversed by the appeals court in the future.
Senate Bill 2420, which was supposed to activate on Jan. 1, establishes age verification requirements and mandates parental consent before a person under the age of 18 is allowed to download or make purchases within apps. The law also requires app developers to say whether their apps are appropriate for people in four categories: children under 13, teens aged 13-15, older teens aged 16-17 or adults 18 or older.
Its supporters say the law is needed to protect children as they navigate social media and online spaces, while critics say it would violate free speech rights. Louisiana and Utah have passed similar laws that have not yet gone into effect.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a tech trade group, and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, an advocacy group, filed separate lawsuits in October challenging the law, both arguing it violates the First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman sided with the plaintiffs in December, finding the law likely violates the First Amendment and issuing the temporary injunction blocking the law while the full case plays out in the district court.
“The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book,” Pitman wrote in a 20-page ruling at the time.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed the temporary injunction in late December.
Paxton earlier this month urged the appeals court to allow enforcement of the law, arguing the state has the right to regulate transactions between minors and app marketplaces that take place in the state, according to court filings.
Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs earlier this week urged the court to uphold Pitman’s injunction, arguing SB 2420 “restricts an enormous amount of online speech” in violation of the First Amendment.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thursday’s ruling is only an administrative stay, temporarily blocking the lower court’s injunction of the law until a further review by the 5th Circuit.
DALLAS (AP) — An explosion and massive fire at a Dallas apartment building Thursday killed a child and at least two other people following a blast that shook nearby homes and happened while firefighters were rushing to a reported gas leak, officials said.
At least five people also went to hospitals with injuries, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesperson Jason Evans said. It was unclear how many residents lived in the two-story complex in the Oak Cliff neighborhood south of downtown Dallas, where a towering plume of black smoke was visible for miles.
Evans did not rule out that more victims could be found as crews continued to sift through the charred remains of the building. By late Thursday, Evans said firefighters had searched less than half of the scene by hand and that some areas would require excavation.
“This was enormous,” Evans said of the fire.
As dozens of firefighters swarmed to the neighborhood, some residents’ friends and relatives worried as they tried unsuccessfully to reach each loved ones. Dozens of firefighters searched through the smoldering rubble of the building even as colleagues continued to drench the blackened debris.
Berry said firefighters were responding to a call of a gas leak when an explosion happened.
“We had the cavalry coming,” Dallas Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Mark Berry said. “But the explosion had already taken place.”
Atmos Energy, a natural gas provider, said in a statement they were told by fire officials that a construction crew unrelated to the company had damaged a pipeline near the site of the fire.
Kacee Proctor, a resident of the apartment building, said her mother had smelled gas inside a day earlier, but Proctor didn’t think much of it at the time.
She wasn’t home during the blast and was devastated that her cat, Shirley, was stuck inside.
“I’ve been sitting over there crying for several hours. I don’t know what to do. This is all I have right here,” Proctor said, gesturing to the clothes she was wearing.
She spent the afternoon chatting with neighbors who had evacuated, including a girl who was home babysitting her little sister and carried both the child and their dog to safety.
Natural gas service to the area remained shut off, and company officials were working with investigators on-site, the company said.
Authorities set up a family reunification center at a nearby high school. Several hours after the blaze, Frances Rizo was still trying to find her friend who lived in the building.
“She’s not answering her phone,” Rizo said.
Firefighters rushed to the scene as flames and black smoke billowed into the sky. Some trained their hoses on piles of smoking debris while others removed lumber and other burned wreckage to look for anyone trapped underneath. Little more than a blackened shell of the original building remained.
“The fire is contained, but our members are still working on the scene to do primary searches,” said Dallas Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief James Russ.
Julie Jensen said she was at home less than a block from the burning building when she heard a noise like an explosion that left her ears ringing.
“I was sitting on my couch watching TV — stuff flew off our walls,” Jensen said.
Jensen said she saw rising smoke and neighbors running when she looked out the window. She grabbed her family’s cat and left, finding a nearby parking lot to wait until she knew it was safe to return.
Sal De La Rosa was at work at a nearby auto repair shop when “all of a sudden we just heard and felt this huge boom.”
“We felt where the building kind of shook a little bit,” De La Rosa said.
He said a co-worker went outside and saw thick, black smoke rising into the air.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Frances Rizo’s last name in one instance. It is Rizo, not Rizzo.
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Associated Press journalists Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement through the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term was supposed to be an easy lift for Republicans.
But progress stalled over concerns about the inclusion of White House ballroom security funding in the package and the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to finance claims of government mistreatment. The stumble has not only delayed action on a top GOP priority but also is raising questions about other parts of the party’s legislative agenda, including whether Republicans can enact another catchall, party-line bill referred to in Washington parlance as “Reconciliation 3.0.”
Republicans have spent recent weeks laying the groundwork for such a bill, which they hope will serve as a final sales pitch to voters going into the midterms.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have been meeting with committee and caucus chairs to screen for proposals that have strong buy-in from the rank and file. They are aiming to follow up on last summer’s big tax and spending cuts bill with a measure that would increase Pentagon spending by hundreds of billions of dollars and would include cuts elsewhere to help pay for it, which they are couching as tackling government waste and fraud.
It’s a high-stakes gambit in an election year. Success will reinforce the GOP’s message of being able to deliver on legislative priorities. Failure will underscore some of the Republican fractures under Trump that could leave voters seeking an alternative.
Here’s a look at the coming debate as Republicans hope to pass a bill before leaving for their August recess.
Johnson navigated the House GOP’s slim majority in passing Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill last summer. The vote was 218-214. At the time, Republicans could afford to lose three votes from within their ranks. They lost just two.
They’ll have a thin margin of error again, but Johnson said he’s even more confident of success this time around.
“It will be just as beautiful, but not as big, so it’ll have less provisions and less things to get everybody to yes on,” he said.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Republicans are just as motivated as they were last year on the tax cuts bill.
“This one, I think you’ll have potentially money to support our troops in conflict,” said Arrington, of Texas. “I can’t imagine a Republican not wanting to support our troops and military community in a time of conflict.”
The Trump administration has called on Republicans to provide $350 billion to defense through a reconciliation bill.
But Rep. Brendan Boyle, the lead Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Republicans will have a more difficult path than they did with Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill.
“I think it will be for a couple of reasons. First is the president’s approval rating. He was at a much higher level a year ago than he is right now,” said Boyle, of Pennsylvania. “Number 2, we are much closer to the November midterm elections. So, if you’re one of a dozen or a couple dozen House Republicans who are really vulnerable in a swing district, you have to think even more carefully about voting for something that has even more health care cuts in it.”
The tax cuts bill that passed last summer reduced spending on Medicaid by more than $900 billion over a decade. It also reduced spending on nutrition assistance by about $187 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune called a third reconciliation bill to get around the filibuster a “potential option,” hardly a ringing endorsement.
“We haven’t made any commitments on that, but we’re hearing people out,” said Thune, of South Dakota.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said lawmakers should know what will be in the bill before the legislative process begins. That way, it’s less likely to unravel.
“If it just becomes another exercise where you’re not really sure what’s going to be the end product, then I think it’s a mistake even to pursue it,” Tillis said. “We ought to be smart about it if we do a third one, but it is kind of a moonshot.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she worried about the strategy.
“A third reconciliation may or may not happen. I’m just being direct,” she said.
The House is expected to be in session for about 24 more days before it breaks for its August recess. That leaves little time to pass a budget blueprint in both chambers, which is the first hurdle for pursuing party-line tax and spending bills. Committees would also have to wrap up their work advancing their portions of the legislation.
Another hurdle could be Trump’s treatment of current senators whose votes he will need for any package to become law. Trump endorsed opponents of two senators who faced stiff primary challenges and eventually lost — Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas.
Cassidy has already shown more willingness to buck the president. Fresh off his primary loss, he voted last week to advance a bill that seeks to force Trump to withdraw from hostilities with Iran.
Lawmakers said they could tweak and resurrect some proposals that did not pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian for inclusion in last year’s reconciliation bill. For example, Republicans tried to prevent states from providing Medicaid coverage for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said the bill should rest on three pillars, making the country more affordable and secure while reducing fraud.
Among the group’s recommendations is a proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax on the sale of homes to first-time homebuyers, which they say would incentivize the market, and a proposal to impose a 5% tax on funds sent by noncitizens back to their home countries.
Arrington said he would also like to tighten the rules for the earned income tax credit, a program that increases the financial reward for working but that also has a high rate of improper payments. He also called for prohibiting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally from living in housing units financed by a housing tax credit paid to developers who construct and rehab affordable housing for renters.
“There’s a lot more work to be done to build on what we did in the first one with Medicaid and SNAP (nutrition assistance), with respect to fraud,” Arrington said.
WASHINGTON (AP)- A federal judge has declined to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Republican Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented.
“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote. “Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.”
The legal battle against the provision now shifts to Boston, where voting rights groups have a separate lawsuit seeking to temporarily block the executive order in federal court. The Trump administration has yet to formally issue lists of eligible voters, and those who filed the initial request for a temporary halt said they’d be back if the administration moves in that direction.
“We are ready to resume the fight if and when the administration takes those next steps,” said Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the organizations that sought the stay from Nichols.
Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.
Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.
Democrats and civil rights groups argued it was urgent that Nichols issue a restraining order in the midst of primary season and with states already gearing up for the fall midterm elections.
This was Trump’s second executive order seeking to overhaul elections and voting. His initial election executive order, issued just months after he took office in his second term, has been blocked by multiplefederal judges. That order sought to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key inflation gauge accelerated in April to the highest level in three years, squeezing Americans’ finances and creating political challenges for President Trump and congressional Republicans with midterm elections just five months away.
Inflation jumped to 3.8% in April compared with a year ago, the Commerce Department said Thursday, up from 3.5% in March and the highest since May 2023. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4%, down from the 0.7% jump in March but still higher than the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve would prefer.
Thursday’s inflation report also showed that in addition to gasoline, prices for groceries, clothing and electricity are also on the rise, indicating that inflation could persist. Inflation is also notably above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, which means Fed policymakers may decide to forego any cuts to their key short-term interest rate this year. Some officials have signaled that the central bank’s next move could be a hike rather than a cut.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose to 3.3% in April from 3.2% the previous month. It is the highest core figure since October 2023. One positive sign in the report: Core prices rose just 0.2% in April from March, down from 0.3% the previous month.
Higher prices are also cutting into the incomes of Americans, which were unchanged in April from March. Incomes were weak in part because farm incomes fell after a large government aid package ended last month. Adjusted for inflation, personal income actually slipped 0.1% last month.
Spending rose 0.5% in April from March, though most of that reflected price increases. Adjusted for inflation, spending rose just 0.1% in April, down from 0.3% the previous month.
“Signs of stress are building inside the American household across the economy,” Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax advisory firm, said. “Inflation-adjusted spending, disposable income … point to a slowing in May spending as inflation approaches a peak on the back of a historic supply shock.”
The U.S. economy grew at a modest 1.6% annual pace from January through March, according to a separate report from the Commerce Department Thursday. The country’s gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last quarter of 2025 when growth was hobbled by the 43-day federal government shutdown.
The first-quarter growth, which covered the first month of the Iran war, was a downgrade from the 2% expansion Commerce initially reported.
Gas prices averaged of about $4.50 a gallon nationwide for three weeks this month before slipping to $4.43 on Thursday, according to the AAA motor club. Gas averaged $2.98 a gallon the day before the Iran war began.
Yet the cost of many other goods and services have picked up in recent months, raising concerns among many Fed officials that inflation is being pushed higher by tariffs and other factors in addition to the war. The cost of services such as dental visits, car repairs and veterinarian visits have been rising sharply, and clothes, toys, and groceries are also seeing outsize price gains.
Rapid investment in artificial intelligence centers also appears to be driving up the cost of computer equipment and software, adding to inflationary pressures. Electricity prices have also spiked from a year ago.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has approved a settlement package designed to rein in groundwater pumping along one of North America’s longest rivers and ensure enough water reliably makes it from New Mexico to Texas, ending a long-running dispute over management of the Rio Grande.
In a brief order Tuesday, the court accepted the recommendation of a special master to move forward with agreements first proposed last year by New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.
The settlement calls for reducing groundwater pumping along the dwindling river and retiring water rights from irrigated farmland in southern New Mexico. The states held up the proposal as a promise to restore order to an elaborate system of storing and sharing water between two vast irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and western Texas.
“We’re very excited to be redirecting resources from costly and lengthy litigation to solutions on the ground,” Hanna Riseley-White, director of the Interstate Stream Commission, said Wednesday.
Those solutions will include everything from long-term fallowing programs and more efficient irrigation infrastructure to developing new sources of water, like tapping brackish supplies or importing water, and improving stormwater management so more runoff can be captured and stored.
Researchers have warned that unsustainable use of the Rio Grande — which originates in Colorado and stretches south into Mexico — threatens water security for millions of people who rely on the binational river basin.
Farmers in southern New Mexico increasingly have turned to groundwater to irrigate pecan orchards and chile crops as hotter, drier conditions have reduced river flows and storage over recent decades. That pumping is what prompted Texas to sue in 2013, claiming the practice was cutting into water deliveries.
While the Colorado River gets all the headlines, experts say the situation along the Rio Grande is just as dire. Stretches of the river as far north as Albuquerque are expected to go dry again this year, marking the third time in five years.
The settlement package provides for a detailed accounting system for sharing water with Texas. New Mexico could rely on credits and debits from year to year to navigate through drought and wet periods, though it could be responsible for additional water-sharing obligations if deliveries are deferred too long.
Under the settlement, New Mexico must reduce annual groundwater depletions by 18,200 acre-feet, or about 5.9 billion gallons (22.3 billion liters) within the next 10 years. The commitment includes completing half of that within the next five years.
Riseley-White said that represents about 5% to 7% of current groundwater use in the lower Rio Grande. The settlement doesn’t dictate what sector the water savings comes from, so she said industry and municipalities could also partner with the state to meet the mandates.
Still, officials expect to achieve most of the necessary reductions from buying water rights from the agricultural industry, meaning more farmland would be retired.
Riseley-White said listening sessions are underway this week and the first acquisitions are expected to begin later this year. New Mexico has secured more than $40 million in federal funding to support the effort, she said.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week’s test flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket’s first-stage booster.
Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company’s investigation.
The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
HOUSTON (AP) — Texas Democrat James Talarico launched his general election campaign for the U.S. Senate Wednesday by framing his Republican opponent, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, as part of a corrupt political establishment that uses power to serve itself rather than the people.
Talarico has given Democrats their best chance in years of winning a Senate race in Texas and has boosted their still-uphill chances of retaking the majority in the U.S. Senate in November. Talarico, a former middle school teacher and a state lawmaker from Austin, laid out a clear strategy for the months ahead: Litigating Paxton’s scandals to a weary electorate.
“Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America,” Talarico told a crowd of about 1,000 supporters who packed a dance club in downtown Houston. “He has failed the character test. He has put his own interests above the laws of Texas. Those are not my words, those are the words of Ken Paxton’s fellow Republicans.”
He also sought to tie what he called the “rot” at the heart of the nation’s political system to the everyday problems faced by many voters, driving home the concerns over rising costs that have been part of Democrats’ wider messaging strategy for this year’s midterm elections.
“In America, we have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis,” Talarico told the crowd.
Talarico’s messaging is tougher than in the primary
It was a stark pivot from the more sunny, spiritual theme of Talarico’s Democratic primary campaign. Now, he’s leaning into the same arguments against Paxton that Republican Senate leaders feared would make the attorney general a weaker candidate than Sen. John Cornyn, who Paxton beat in Tuesday’s Republican runoff.
The diverse crowd in Houston held signs emblazoned with “Talarico,” but with a new twist. On the flipside was the campaign’s new theme: “THE PEOPLE vs. KEN PAXTON.”
Phrased like a court case aimed at the state’s chief law enforcement officer, the theme was launched on the day that also marked the third anniversary of Paxton’s impeachment on allegations he used his office to benefit a wealthy political donor.
Paxton was acquitted on all 20 articles of impeachment, which has emboldened him and fueled his supporters. Many of them have long held that he and President Donald Trump, who endorsed him, have been victims of political persecution.
But the message seemed to resonate with many at Talarico’s rally.
Monique Green, a retired elementary school teacher from Houston, said the most important part of the “The People vs. Ken Paxton” sign she clutched to her chest while standing in line to meet Talarico were its first two words.
“It’s a declaration that it’s about us,” she said. “We are the ones, all of us, what we can definitely do together. And he inspires us to act. He doesn’t just talk — he believes.”
Campaign aides said Talarico had raised $600,000 in small, on-line donations within two hours of Paxton’s win in the Republican Texas runoff Tuesday, the most lucrative two hours for his campaign since he announced he was running in September 2025.
Turning personal attacks into campaign slogans
One of the first speakers at the rally was the Democratic state representative who co-led Paxton’s impeachment, Ann Johnson, alongside a Republican lawmaker.
Talarico emphasized that the impeachment over corruption allegations was brought by the Republican majority in the Texas statehouse, Paxton’s own party. After his rally, he said he is making the campaign about Paxton’s record because “he has escaped accountability for years.”
Paxton’s campaign declined to comment. But after Talarico finished speaking, Paxton posted a link to his campaign’s donation page on the social platform X with a personal attack on his opponent: “James Talarico and his big vegan allies have raised a fortune trying to stop the America First agenda. I need your help!” he wrote.
It echoed a line from Paxton after his runoff victory on Tuesday, and Talarico had a response ready for his supporters at the Houston rally: “I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment,” he said.
The vegan jab is part of Paxton’s attempt to seek out what he considers weak points in Talarico’s campaign, including past statements in which Talarico said God is nonbinary and that there were six biological sexes. And in a strategy reminiscent of Trump, Paxton also has been testing nicknames for his opponent.
They included “TalaFreako,” which Talarico turned to his advantage Wednesday night. He told his supporters they could go to his campaign website and buy T-shirts stamped with the new nickname.
In an interview with CBS News ahead of Wednesday’s rally, Talarico responded to the claims about his beliefs on gender, saying that what he means is that “God cannot be defined by human categories” and there were “two sexes, men and women.”
“I also know there’s a very small percentage of people who have these chromosomal abnormalities, and I believe that they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” he said.
MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas (KETK) — A former East Texas coach has been arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in February after driving her home.
According to an arrest affidavit from Titus County, a woman went to the Mount Pleasant Police Department late on Feb. 15 asking to speak privately with an officer. She reported that on Feb. 13 she had been drinking at an unknown residence and that Antione Javon Ross had been asked to take her home.
At about 12:29 a.m., the woman’s mother received a call from a friend saying the woman had been crying and claimed Ross had sexually assaulted her.
Hopkins County man arrested after allegedly stealing mower, power tools
The victim told police she does not remember going home and only recalls waking up and telling Ross to “get off her” before he left. She went to the emergency room for a SANE exam before speaking with officers.
Detectives later went to Mount Pleasant ISD and confirmed Ross was a junior high coach. When they approached him in the parking lot, Ross reportedly said, “I kinda know what you’re talking about,” according to the affidavit. He told detectives he had already spoken with his lawyer and would not answer questions.
Investigators obtained the woman’s SANE kit and related paperwork, which they said provided enough probable cause to charge Ross with sexual assault. Ross was arrested on April 29 and released in early May on a $100,000 bond.
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is on a winning streak in Republican primaries, most recently endorsing Ken Paxton ahead of his Tuesday runoff victory over Sen. John Cornyn in Texas.
But Trump’s tightening grip on his party could make it harder to win in the November midterms, when Republicans face a broader electorate that has soured on the president’s second term and the economy.
The risk is compounded, Republican operatives say, by how cavalier the billionaire president has been in addressing Americans’ financial worries, which have been exacerbated by Trump’s trade rollercoaster and his ongoing war against Iran.
Republican strategist David Urban, a Trump ally, acknowledged the president’s approach is making things harder for his party.
“It’s going to be a tough fall unless things dramatically change,” Urban said.
He warned that Trump cannot afford a haphazard exit from the war with Iran to resolve a conflict that has created a chokehold on global oil supplies and driven gas prices higher for Americans.
“I think the president wants to help,” he said, but “you do not want to give the Iranians a win just because of the midterms.”
Not only are prices higher after Trump’s tariffs and his Iran war, but the president has repeatedly described affordability concerns as a “hoax.”
Trump mused that increases in gas prices — up more than 50% in the U.S. since Trump and Israel launched attacks on Iran — amount to “peanuts.” He said he does not consider Americans’ personal finances “even a little bit” when mulling options in Iran, insisting that preventing the country from obtaining nuclear weapons is his only priority.
All of that comes as Trump badgers Congress to spend $1 billion on his White House ballroom project and allocate $1.8 billion to pay restitution to people who believe they were prosecuted for political purposes — potentially including those who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It’s a cascade that Republicans in every battleground House district, Senate election or statewide contest will have to navigate in the fall.
“You keep the House and Senate by having a message, by dealing with the issues voters are clearly complaining about,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, a Trump critic. “The administration has utterly failed to do this.”
It has been more than two weeks since the Republican National Committee distributed talking points to surrogates that mention the economy, according to messaging documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
The only talking points sent out last week focused on defending Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund.”
“Democrats and the fake-news media are deliberately ignoring the fact that this fund is not limited to Republicans or Trump supporters,” said the message on May 23.
Two weeks earlier, the RNC encouraged surrogates to praise the president and his party for “delivering lower costs.”
The messaging ignored the exploding cost of gas, but noted that the price of eggs, school supplies and butter was down significantly over last year.
“President Trump promised to lower prices, and he is doing just that,” the talking points said.
Republicans began Trump’s second presidency with a 220-215 advantage in the House. They’ve boosted their chances to hold the majority by redrawing congressional maps in several Republican-run states. But Democrats are still confident they can flip enough seats to reclaim a majority.
Republicans have a more significant 53-47 advantage in the Senate. However, leaders of both parties agree that control of the chamber is in play. Some Republicans blame Trump for backing candidates like Paxton, who has faced years of scandals and could prove more vulnerable in a race against Democratic nominee James Talarico in the fall.
Viet Shelton, a spokesman for House Democrats’ campaign committee, said Trump’s redistricting push shows that he understands his party’s troubles.
“They’ve given up on trying to win over voters fair and square, so they’re resorting to rigging the midterms through illegal gerrymanders and voter suppression,” Shelton said.
Democratic advisers said Trump’s struggles have shifted the dynamics in multiple races. Their list of Republican-held House targets now includes many districts that Trump carried by double digits. In special elections and odd-year elections since Trump’s second inauguration, Democrats have consistently outperformed their 2024 results.
Voters can expect to see clips of Trump’s comments on the economy featured in Democratic advertising this fall. However, party operatives said the broader strategy is to acknowledge the president’s appeal as a populist but argue that he and his Republican loyalists have failed to deliver.
In U.S. House districts in Iowa, for example, that means emphasizing how tariffs have affected the farm economy and how the Iran war has increased the prices of diesel fuel and fertilizer. In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, that means talking about how Trump’s immigration crackdown has roiled the local economy in Latino communities.
Republican strategists are worried by Trump’s lack of focus on the economy — and the lack of transparency from Trump’s team about how it plans to deploy its massive campaign accounts.
The pro-Trump super PAC known as MAGA Inc. held more than $356 million at the end of April. Yet many Republican strategists say they’ve received no clear indication of how, where and when Trump’s team plans to spend the money, according to several operatives who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
They see one bright spot in James Blair, Trump’s political general, leaving the White House to focus on the midterms.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the president’s strategy and confidence about the midterms.
Perhaps underscoring Republicans’ conundrum, Trump remains a fundraising juggernaut. He helped House Republicans rake in $36.8 million in a single fundraising dinner last month, a committee record.
Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Trump “puts House Republicans in the strongest possible position to defy history and win in November.”
Of course, a candidate must win the Republican nomination to even be around for the fall campaign.
“The president has chosen to be aggressive in endorsing candidates he believes are the best advocates for his agenda and have been loyal to him,” Republican campaign veteran Chip Lake said.
Lake is leading an independent expenditure effort on behalf of Georgia Republican Burt Jones, the Trump-endorsed candidate in a June 16 primary runoff for governor.
“It’s difficult, if not impossible to win a primary in today’s environment if the president is working against you,” Lake said. And whatever the general election consequences, he added, independents and moderates “make up a very tiny, even minuscule portion of Republican primaries.”
PLANO (AP) — As it turned out, it would never be enough.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried for more than a year to show Donald Trump and Texas Republicans that he and the president were on the same team.
Cornyn posted a photo of himself reading Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.” He proposed legislation to rename a stretch of interstate in Trump’s honor. Perhaps most glaringly, the Senate institutionalist who long supported the filibuster reversed his position in a failed effort to advance voting restrictions that are a priority for the president.
None of it worked. On Tuesday, Cornyn became the latest in a line of Republicans who lost their primaries after falling out of favor with a president with little tolerance for dissent and a seemingly insatiable appetite for retribution. The four-term senator lost by double digits to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed last week as “a true MAGA Warrior.”
Cornyn, on the other hand, “was VERY disloyal to me,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump’s intervention in the Texas runoff came after weeks of successfully backing primary challengers in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky as revenge against incumbents who broke with his agenda.
Cornyn’s attempt to avoid the same fate made even some of his supporters wince.
“You look at the positions he took to please the president and the groveling and whatever,” said former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican and Trump critic who didn’t seek reelection during the president’s first midterm in 2018. “It was rather painful to watch.”
Cornyn’s loss wasn’t for a lack of political gymnastics and astronomical campaign spending.
His campaign began running an advertisement last summer — part of an astounding nearly-$100-million air war by the senator and allied groups — with Cornyn looking into the camera and saying, “I voted with President Trump 99% of the time.”
On Cornyn’s campaign homepage, Trump and Cornyn stand side-by-side with thumbs pointed upward in an image aimed at projecting solidarity. Deeper in the website, the category titled “The Trump-Cornyn Record” notes the senator’s role securing votes for Trump’s signature 2017 tax cut bill.
Cornyn has also been championing provisions in Trump’s signature tax-and-spending legislation to finance work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The senator had dismissed the project as “naive” during Trump’s 2016 campaign. But in January, he stood along a section of completed wall in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley touting the measure’s $11 billion for Texas contractors’ work at “the direction of the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.”
Cornyn’s praise for his party’s leader and president were not unusual, but they clash with a statement Cornyn made in May 2023, when Trump was mounting his presidential comeback campaign.
“Trump’s time has passed him by,” he told reporters. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”
Trump would go on to easily win the nomination and carry every battleground state in the general election.
Cornyn would hew closely to the president for the first 16 months of his second administration, hoping at the outside chance of his endorsement or to keeping him from weighing in at all.
But Trump did not forget the past slights.
“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” he wrote on social media while endorsing Paxton.
Cornyn has playfully worked to promote Trump fandom, last year posting a picture on social media of himself thoughtfully peering into the pages of Trump’s 1987 memoir and business advice book, “The Art of the Deal.”
In a more obvious gesture, he proposed designating a section of a U.S. highway from the Texas Gulf Coast to Montana as “Interstate 47,” to honor a 47th president with a well-documented love of naming things after himself. In a news release about the proposal, filed just over two weeks before Tuesday’s runoff, Cornyn said it would be known as the “Trump Interstate.”
The more tectonic shift occurred in March, after Trump had teased a possible endorsement of either Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.
Paxton swiftly said he would consider dropping his candidacy if the Republican-controlled Senate lifted the filibuster and passed the SAVE America Act, a series of voting restrictions that Trump has described as an essential part of his agenda.
The following week, Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the New York Post — Trump’s favorite hometown newspaper — backing away from his previous support of the filibuster. He vowed to “support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to get the bill “through the Senate and on the president’s desk for his signature.”
Flake watched with unease.
“I know John and his long-held positions on the filibuster and the Senate’s institutions,” he said. “No office is worth that.”
PLANO (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating four-term Sen. John Cornyn.
Paxton was endorsed by President Donald Trump last week. His victory in Tuesday’s runoff makes Cornyn the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.
Trump endorsed Paxton as part of his effort to dislodge GOP officeholders he views as less than devout in their support of him. Cornyn said in 2023 as Trump was running to return to the White House that his time “has passed him by.”
Cornyn led Paxton in the March 3 primary but did not receive a majority of the vote, forcing Tuesday’s runoff.
Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spent roughly $109 million on advertising for the primary and runoff. He had the backing of Senate GOP leaders who said he would be the stronger general election candidate.
Paxton will run against state Rep. James Talarico in November.
Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic U.S. House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party wants to flip.
Cornyn led Paxton in the March primary but failed to win a majority. That was after Cornyn and his supporters waged a monthslong ad campaign, mostly attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions. The two-term attorney general was acquitted on corruption charges in a 2023 impeachment trial, where allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Paxton’s wife filed for divorce last year, citing “biblical grounds.”
The alliance of pro-Cornyn groups has continued its attack, outspending Paxton’s campaign and two allied super PACs $16.5 million to $5.9 million since March 3, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Trump promised to endorse immediately after the primary but didn’t act until after early voting began last week.
“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to win,” Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him.
David Jacobson, a retired 70-year-old Dallas-area resident, said Trump’s endorsement was a factor in his decision to back Paxton on Tuesday. While Cornyn has for the most part been a strong Trump supporter, Jacobson generally thinks most politicians have remained in office too long.
“Maybe it’s time for a change,” he said after voting near Dallas.
Linda Williams said she voted for Cornyn, calling him “the lesser of two evils.” She thinks Cornyn has a better chance to beat Talarico this fall.
“Because Paxton is a crook,” Williams said after voting in Plano, outside Dallas.
Trump, in his endorsement, poked at Cornyn, saying he “was not supportive of me when times were tough” and that “John was very late in backing me.”
Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the presidency again in 2024 and that his “time has passed him by.” He also was an early critic of Trump’s plan for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — a project he now supports.
Cornyn said Tuesday on Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show” that the president’s ire was misplaced. There are “grifters,” he said, “claiming that I am opposed to the president’s agenda, and I think that’s caused some confusion with the president himself. But I’ve been supportive.”
Some GOP strategists have argued that a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority. Cornyn has the support of Senate GOP leaders.
Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee defeated veteran Rep. Al Green in Texas’ 18th District, dispatching a longtime House incumbent who was one of Trump’s most outspoken critics. The Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew the district when it approved a new House map last year. The new map led to a runoff between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections in the Houston area.
Former Rep. Colin Allred and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson are competing in the Dallas-area 33rd District. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid and instead is looking to return to the House.
Near San Antonio, Democratic leaders are trying to prevent Maureen Galindo, who has expressed antisemitic views, from winning the party’s runoff with Johnny Garcia. While Texas lawmakers redrew the 35th District to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and don’t want Galindo’s past comments to impede them.
LONDON, Uk. (AP) – BP has ousted its chairman over what it called serious concerns related to “important governance standards, oversight and conduct.”
The departure was abrupt and unexpected, with Albert Manifold having been appointed to the position late last year.
“Albert has helped bring a welcome focus and pace to BP’s transformation,” Amanda Blanc, senior independent director, said in a statement Tuesday. “However, the board has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable and has taken decisive action.”
BP’s board named Ian Tyler as interim chair, effective immediately.
BP, based in London, is a “supermajor,” one of the five largest oil production and exploration companies in the world when measured by revenue and profit.
Manifold, who had been the top executive at Dublin-based global building materials company CRH for 10 years, became the chair at BP in October. BP was looking for someone to revamp the oil giant and went with an industry outsider in Manifold, who had made major strategic changes at CRH.
After a new focus on renewable energy at BP in 2020, by 2025 the company was seeking a return to its roots. BP’s hard reset was criticized by environmentalists, as well as some shareholders.
CEO Murray Auchincloss said last year that optimism over opportunities in renewable energy was misplaced, with the company moving “too far and too fast.”
Changes in leadership at BP in recent years has been tumultuous.
CEO Bernard Looney resigned in late 2023 after BP determined that he had misled the company over his past relationships with colleagues.
Auchincloss stepped down in December, and the company named Meg O’Neill as his successor.
Manifold’s was challenged almost immediately when shareholders defeated company resolutions this spring that would have allowed BP to reduce climate reporting requirements and move its annual meetings fully online. Some 18% of shareholders voted against Manifold’s election as chairman, a high level of opposition for an appointment that is generally rubber stamped by investors.
Legal & General, one of Britain’s largest insurers and investment companies, said at the time that Manifold was responsible for resolutions that would have had “a negative impact on shareholders’ insight into how the company is addressing financially material long-term risks, and seizing long-term value creation opportunities, associated with the energy transition,” the Times of London reported on April 23.
Glass Lewis, an influential shareholder advisor, urged investors to vote against Manifold’s election. It held that BP took “unprecedented action” by refusing to consider a resolution from a group of climate activists and pension funds hoping to force the board to create an alternative strategy should demand for fossil fuels decline, the Times reported.
Like other big oil companies, BP has struggled with falling demand in recent years.
BP’s 2025 earnings fell 16% from a year earlier to $7.49 billion as the price of Brent crude, a benchmark for international oil prices, dropped 16.9%. The company’s preferred measure of earnings is underlying replacement cost profit, which adjusts for one-time items and fluctuations in the market value of inventories. Net income plunged 86% to $55 million.
Last year there were media reports that British oil giant Shell was in talks to buy rival BP. Shell denied the reports at the time.
The search for a new chair is underway, BP said Tuesday.
Shares of BP Plc slid nearly 5% in midday trading on the NYSE.
PLANO, Texas (AP) — Texans are choosing a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s runoff election, bringing to a close the extended, bitter and expensive primary where President Donald Trump weighed in late to tip the race in another effort to rid the GOP of leaders less devoted to him.
Trump’s endorsement of state Attorney General Ken Paxton over four-term Sen. John Cornyn gives the challenger a late boost and puts Cornyn at risk of becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek the party’s nod and lose.
That’s despite Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups spending roughly $90 million in advertising since last year, the vast majority of it attacking Paxton.
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 Democratic state Rep. James Talarico.
Tuesday’s runoffs also will decide Democratic U.S. House nominees for districts in Dallas and Houston that overwhelmingly support Democrats, and a San Antonio-area seat the party hopes to flip.
The primary has been long, bitter and costly
Cornyn led Paxton in the March primary but failed to win a majority in the three-way contest that also included U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished in a distant third.
That was after Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups waged a monthslong ad campaign, mostly attacking Paxton for ethical and personal questions. The two-term attorney general was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial when allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced. Last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds.”
The alliance of pro-Cornyn groups have continued its attack, outspending Paxton’s campaign and two allied super PACs $16.5 million to $5.9 million since March 3, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Trump promised to endorse immediately after the primary, asking the unchosen candidate to withdraw. But he didn’t act until after early voting began on May 18.
“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to win,” Trump wrote in a social media post endorsing him. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”
Pro-Cornyn groups lately have been airing ads criticizing the attorney general office’s handling of a Waco sex abuse case. Pro-Paxton groups had seized on Cornyn’s awkward relationship with Trump.
Trump snubs Cornyn amid retribution campaign
The negative tenor could diminish turnout in an election already complicated by coming a day after Memorial Day, Texas Republican strategist Tyler Norris said. About 2 million of Texas’ 18.7 million voters participated in the GOP primary.
The dynamic could favor Paxton, whose support draws from more of the most loyal Trump base in Texas, said Norris, who isn’t affiliated with either campaign.
“The defining battle lines are based around hyper-negative messaging, which dampens turnout to begin with,” he said. “So who is going to show up is the hardest of the hard core.”
Trump in his endorsement also poked at Cornyn, as he has done with other Republicans who are not in lockstep with the president.
He blasted Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy as “a Disloyal Disaster” on May 16, before Cassidy lost a GOP primary for the office he has held since 2015. The two-term senator had voted to convict Trump after his 2021 impeachment trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump backed U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who advanced to a runoff with John Fleming, the state treasurer. Cassidy finished well behind them.
Last week, Trump celebrated as Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a critic of the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, lost his primary to Ed Gallrein. Trump called Massie “the worst congressman in the history of our country.”
In endorsing Paxton, Trump said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough” and that “John was very late in backing me.”
Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the presidency again in 2024 and that his “time has passed him by.” He also was an early critic of Trump’s plan for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico — a project he now supports.
Senate GOP leaders backed Cornyn, saying he would be stronger in the general election. Some GOP strategists have argued a Paxton nomination would cost millions of dollars more to promote in the fall, when money could be spent defending Republican seats in more competitive states. Democrats need to gain a net of four seats to take the majority.
Democrats also will choose US House nominees
Newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee and veteran Rep. Al Green are vying for the party nod in Texas’ 18th District, which the Republican-led Texas Legislature redrew last year to help the GOP. The new map led to a contest between incumbents and marks the end of a dizzying series of elections in the Houston area. Menefee was elected in a special runoff in January to the seat that had been held by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025.
Menefee finished narrowly ahead of Green in the March 3 primary but didn’t win a majority to avoid the runoff.
Former Rep. Colin Allred and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson are competing in the Dallas-area 33rd District. Johnson was elected to the seat in 2024, the year Allred lost his U.S. Senate challenge to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred was running for Senate again this cycle but dropped his bid and instead is looking to return to the House.
Near San Antonio, Democratic leaders are trying to prevent Maureen Galindo, who has expressed antisemitic views, from winning the party’s runoff with Johnny Garcia. While Texas lawmakers redrew the 35th District to help Republicans, Democrats view it as within reach and don’t want Galindo’s past comments to impede them.
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Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas.