In Texas Senate run-off, MAGA ousts the old guard
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and Texas Newsroom reporter Blaise Gainey.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. And I'm Claudia Grisales. I cover Congress. |
| 0:10.5 | And Blaise Ganey from the Texas newsroom is also here. Welcome, Blaze. |
| 0:14.2 | Yeah, glad to be here. So today on the show, takeaways from yesterday's primary runoffs in Texas. |
| 0:19.9 | And let's start with the Republican Senate |
| 0:22.1 | primary, where President Trump weighed in late to endorse state attorney general Ken Paxton |
| 0:27.7 | over four-time incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Blaze, tell us how that turned out and whether |
| 0:34.3 | Trump's endorsement mattered. You know, it turned out with Attorney General Kim Paxson really dominating Senator John |
| 0:41.6 | Corny, I believe he won by around 30 points. |
| 0:44.8 | And it was really clear as soon as polls closed and results started to come out that he was |
| 0:50.2 | going to win. |
| 0:50.8 | And also, the Trump endorsement, it did matter. And, you know, if you're keeping, |
| 0:57.8 | you know, tally of how many times he's endorsed somebody and they won. But in reality, |
| 1:02.5 | these two guys are really well known in the state. They've been in elected statewide offices for |
| 1:09.7 | nearly 10 years, if not more, if you're counting |
| 1:13.0 | Corny. Many more if you're counting Corny. Exactly. So therefore, Trump's endorsement, |
| 1:18.7 | I'm not saying it didn't matter, but this came on, I believe, a Monday night or a Tuesday |
| 1:23.2 | morning, already a day in to early voting. texas already know these guys well and knew who |
| 1:29.8 | they wanted to vote for and the the thought was that paxton the polling show that paxton was likely |
| 1:36.0 | to win in a runoff um so really trump's endorsement sort of was like a stamp of approval more than |
| 1:42.2 | like him saying hey voters this is the person to pick. |
| 1:47.3 | I think his endorsement weighs more in races where people are not as known as a Ken Paxton or a John Cornyn. |
| 1:55.7 | That's part of a raging debate today, too, in terms of did Trump motivate more voters to come out for Paxton and |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 20 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.