President Donald Trump has once again placed himself at the center of Texas Republican politics, issuing more than 130 endorsements ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections in what amounts to one of the most expansive intraparty efforts of his presidency.
Trump has long exerted significant influence over Texas GOP voters, but this year’s primary cycle represents an especially broad test of his political sway while in office. While he has stayed out of some of the highest-profile contests — most notably the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate — he has otherwise distributed endorsements widely, backing candidates across congressional, statewide, and state legislative races.
“We’ve got to win the midterms,” Trump said Friday at an event in Corpus Christi that focused on energy policy but also served as a pre-primary rally. “We brought this country back. We don’t want to lose the midterms.”
Texas has become central to Trump’s efforts to maintain Republicans’ narrow majority in the U.S. House. He encouraged GOP state lawmakers to adopt a redistricting plan that created five new Republican-leaning congressional districts, a move that fueled a broader national redistricting battle. Trump has endorsed candidates in the primaries for all five of those new seats, and he brought three of them onstage during his Corpus Christi appearance.
Many of Trump’s endorsements trace back to last July, when he issued a blanket endorsement for more than 100 members of the Texas House and Senate who supported Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher proposal. Those endorsements have drawn less recent attention but helped blunt primary challenges against state lawmakers who aligned with Abbott on the controversial education measure. The approach contrasts with 2024, when Abbott, backed by Trump, aggressively targeted Republican incumbents who opposed the voucher plan.
Trump carried Texas by 14 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election, his widest margin there across three campaigns. Recent polling from the University of Texas at Austin found that 81% of Texas Republicans approved of his job performance, even as a plurality of Texans overall expressed disapproval.
Still, his endorsement power has not been immune to setbacks. In January, Leigh Wambsganss, the candidate Trump supported in a special state Senate election, lost in an upset that drew national attention. Trump later distanced himself from the outcome, saying he was “not involved” and characterizing it as “a local Texas race.”
Trump has continued to issue endorsements through the final days of the primary campaign. On Friday night, he backed former state Sen. Don Huffines for comptroller and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller for reelection. Those moves placed him at odds with Abbott, who is supporting acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock in the open comptroller’s race and challenger Nate Sheets in the agriculture commissioner primary.
For campaigns that secure Trump’s endorsement late in the race, quickly publicizing the backing can be critical. Huffines’ campaign said it had prepared advertising in anticipation of a possible endorsement and launched new ads within 30 minutes of Trump’s announcement. “We’re firing on all cylinders, working around the clock to make sure every voter knows President Trump has endorsed this campaign before election day,” Huffines spokesperson Noah Betz said in a statement.
Notably, Trump has declined to take sides in several prominent contests. He has refrained from endorsing in the high-stakes Republican primary for U.S. Senate, where incumbent Sen. John Cornyn faces challenges from Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt. Trump has indicated he may become involved after the primary. “Maybe I’ll wait to see what happens in the primary before I do anything, because you still have a race against a Democrat,” he told a Corpus Christi television station. “I will be very much involved. Maybe I’ll wait until after the primary. Maybe I won’t.”
He has also not endorsed Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who faces a challenge from state Rep. Steve Toth, or weighed in on the competitive Republican primary for attorney general, where Rep. Chip Roy and state Sen. Mayes Middleton are leading contenders.
In several open congressional races, Trump’s endorsement has quickly reshaped the field. After he endorsed Jessica Steinmann, a former lawyer for the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, a self-funded rival ended his campaign within minutes, saying Trump “has now made his wishes clear.” Similarly, the day after Trump endorsed Trever Nehls to succeed his brother, Rep. Troy Nehls, another candidate withdrew, citing respect for the president’s direction.
The breadth of Trump’s involvement underscores his continued central role in Texas Republican politics as he seeks to shape the party’s direction ahead of the general election. Tuesday’s primary results will provide a significant measure of how much influence his endorsement carries within the state’s GOP electorate.
