- A new report indicates President Donald Trump is expected to endorse Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican Senate primary runoff against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
- The May 26 runoff follows a March 3 primary in which neither candidate reached 50 percent, with Cornyn edging Paxton by a slim margin and Rep. Wesley Hunt taking third.
- Over half of GOP primary voters supported candidates other than Cornyn, signaling significant dissatisfaction with the longtime senator.
- Paxton received strong grassroots applause at CPAC in Dallas this week, reinforcing his position as the preferred choice among the base.
- Trump met positively with Paxton last week and has privately acknowledged that the MAGA base stands firmly with the attorney general.
- Establishment support for Cornyn appears to be waning, with limited financial backing from key Senate committees.
- The endorsement decision remains tied in part to progress on Trump’s legislative priorities, including elements of the SAVE Act.
- Paxton has made clear he will not exit the race regardless of Trump’s choice, stating he owes it to the people of Texas to continue fighting.
President Donald Trump stands on the verge of delivering a decisive intervention in one of the most consequential Republican primaries of the 2026 cycle. According to multiple sources familiar with his thinking, the president is expected to endorse Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the May 26 Senate runoff against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
The contest, already marked by sharp contrasts in philosophy and record, has drawn national attention as a test of influence within the GOP. Cornyn, seeking a fifth term, narrowly led the March 3 primary with roughly 41.9 percent of the vote. Paxton followed closely at about 40.7 percent, while Rep. Wesley Hunt placed third with 13.5 percent. More than half the Republican primary electorate voted against the sitting senator, underscoring deep divisions over his long tenure in Washington.
Paxton has positioned himself as an unapologetic defender of conservative principles, known for aggressive legal challenges to federal overreach during multiple administrations. His record includes high-profile fights on border security, election integrity, and Second Amendment rights. Supporters view him as a consistent warrior who has withstood intense opposition, including impeachment efforts in the Texas House that ultimately failed in the Senate.
Cornyn, by contrast, has built a reputation as a seasoned institutional player with decades in the Senate. While he has compiled a solidly conservative voting record on many issues, critics within the party point to moments of compromise and a style they believe too often aligns with establishment priorities rather than the urgent demands of the base.
The latest developments come after a notable showing for Paxton at this week’s CPAC gathering in Dallas. Attendees delivered enthusiastic support, signaling that momentum on the ground continues to favor the attorney general. Sources close to the White House described a recent meeting between Trump and Paxton as positive, with the two discussing the race directly.
Trump himself has referenced the dynamics, noting privately that the base remains strongly behind Paxton, according to reporting from the Washington Post. This aligns with broader patterns observed throughout the primary season, where grassroots energy has repeatedly challenged longer-serving figures perceived as insufficiently aligned with America First priorities.
Financial signals further complicate Cornyn’s path. Reports indicate the National Republican Senatorial Committee and aligned groups have shown restraint in committing major resources, a development interpreted by some as quiet acknowledgment that the race may be shifting toward Paxton. Cornyn’s campaign and establishment allies have worked to portray him as the safer general-election choice, yet recent polling has raised questions about vulnerability even against Democratic opponents in a state that has trended solidly Republican.
The broader context includes Trump’s earlier public statements on the race. Shortly after the March 3 primary, he declared he would make an endorsement “soon” and urged the non-endorsed candidate to drop out immediately for the good of the party and the country. That timeline has extended, with the president balancing the Senate contest against ongoing legislative efforts, particularly on voting integrity measures central to the SAVE Act.
Paxton has remained resolute. He stated plainly that he will stay in the race regardless of Trump’s decision, emphasizing his duty to Texas voters. “I’m staying in this race. I owe it to the people of Texas,” he said. Earlier, he floated the possibility of stepping aside only if Senate Republicans advanced key reforms such as eliminating the filibuster to pass voter ID legislation — a proposal that highlighted the policy stakes involved.
The runoff carries implications far beyond Texas. A Paxton victory would send a clear message about the direction of the Republican Party, reinforcing accountability for incumbents and prioritizing fighters over insiders. It would also likely strengthen the Senate’s alignment with the Trump agenda on issues ranging from border enforcement to judicial appointments and cultural battles.
Democrats have already nominated state Rep. James Talarico as their candidate, setting up what could become a general-election contest defined by stark ideological differences. While Texas remains a Republican stronghold, the intensity of the GOP primary has the potential to energize or divide the base heading into November.
As the May 26 runoff approaches, the anticipated Trump endorsement could prove pivotal. History shows the president’s backing often translates into decisive margins, particularly in states where his support runs deep. Paxton’s path has been built on consistent alignment with that movement, while Cornyn must now navigate a landscape where loyalty to the base carries greater weight than seniority alone.
The coming weeks will test whether institutional experience or principled combativeness better represents the will of Texas Republicans. With Trump reportedly prepared to weigh in, the choice may soon rest squarely with voters who have already signaled their desire for a bolder direction.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
