DALLAS (AP) — Longtime Sen. John Cornyn and MAGA favorite Ken Paxton are heading to a May runoff in Texas’ Republican Senate primary, setting up what’s expected to be a nasty and expensive second round and a renewed push to win the endorsement of US President Donald Trump.

On the Democratic side, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico were in a close race, competing for their party’s nomination and the right to face the winner of the Cornyn-Paxton runoff in November.

Texas, along with North Carolina and Arkansas, kicked off midterm elections with control of Congress at stake and against the backdrop of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Cornyn is seeking a fifth term but facing a tough challenge from Paxton, the state attorney general. He hopes to avoid becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek reelection and not be renominated.

The GOP contest also featured US Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished a distant third and conceded. But him making it a three-way race made it tougher for any candidate to reach the 50 percent vote threshold needed to win the nomination outright and avoid the May 26 runoff.

All three campaigned on their ties to Trump, who did not make an endorsement in the race. Now, both Cornyn and Paxton will again fiercely compete to curry the president’s favor.

Cornyn was facing a tough enough battle that he didn’t hold an election night party. Instead, in comments to reporters in Austin, he sought to make the case that a runoff win by Paxton would leave “a dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans.”

“I’ve worked for decades to build the Republican Party, both here in Texas and nationally,” Cornyn said. “I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years.”

Addressing supporters in Dallas, Paxton made a point of saying he felt like he had during a recent trip to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate. He also proclaimed: “We proved something they’ll never understand in Washington.”

“Texas is not for sale,” he said.

A jubilant Talarico told supporters in Austin, “We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it’s working.”

“This is proof that there is something happening in Texas,” he said, adding that the state........

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