PLANO, Texas (AP) — Voters in Texas will see little of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate on Monday. But that's only if they stay away from screens.
There were no public campaign events scheduled for Sen. John Cornyn nor state Attorney General Ken Paxton on the final day of their more than yearlong quest for the GOP nomination. Instead, their fight for Tuesday's runoff continues as it has for months — intense and unabated — through advertising that has topped $109 million, heavily from Cornyn's side.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks to supporters at a campaign event in McKinney, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Darlee Foster, left, and Debbie King talk before the Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, listens to State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, during a campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, smiles at a campaign event in McKinney, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Cornyn is scheduled to host an annual, non-campaign event in San Antonio to recognize high school graduates attending the nation's service academies. The senator seeking a fifth term held his last public campaign event in Corpus Christi on Friday, ahead of Tuesday’s voting.
Paxton headlined his last events Thursday in the Austin area and in San Antonio, content to let his campaign and a super PAC carry his primary message: that President Donald Trump endorsed him on May 19.
Trump's announcement and accompanying dismissal of Cornyn, who has had an awkward public relationship with the president, came on the second day of early voting, which ended Friday.
Though the candidates were quiet over the weekend, Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sunday, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him.
Paxton, Trump posted on social media, “was also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” while calling Cornyn “VERY disloyal to me.” It was Trump's strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president's reproach of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy before he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary.
Following Trump's call for retribution, Republican voters in Indiana and Kentucky have also chosen GOP primary challengers over incumbent GOP officeholders who have crossed the president or opposed his agenda.
For a contest that is expected to draw a fraction of Texas’ 18.7 million voters, the two candidates’ campaigns and supporting groups were continuing to bombard all Texans with advertising, though more by Cornyn's backers than Paxton's.
"It’s just a slug fest, with the campaigns and third-party groups slugging it out,” said Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.
The combination of Cornyn's campaign and supporting super PACs have far outspent pro-Paxton groups over the past year, by almost nine-to-one. But the gap has shrunk as the runoff has approached. In the final week of the campaign, the combination of pro-Cornyn ad spending was less than twice Paxton's group.
Cornyn's network continued to air spots attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions that have shadowed him with little effect throughout the campaign. Cornyn’s campaign also had reprised an ad noting his tendency to vote in the Senate for Trump’s priorities.
Paxton's campaign and groups supporting him transitioned midweek to all ads noting Trump's endorsement, though Paxton's primary super PAC, Lone Star Liberty Fund, began airing one over the weekend aimed at raising questions about state Rep. James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate nominee.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaks to supporters at a campaign event in McKinney, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Darlee Foster, left, and Debbie King talk before the Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, listens to State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, during a campaign event in Lubbock, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, smiles at a campaign event in McKinney, Texas, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus' exiled opposition leader visited Kyiv on Monday as the Ukrainian capital cleaned up after Russia’s biggest missile attack of the year, and world leaders kept a close eye on how much support the Belarusian government is ready to provide for Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Russia and its ally Belarus held joint nuclear drills last week, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has increasingly warned in recent days that Belarus could provide a launchpad for Russia to open a new front in northern Ukraine. Some Russian troops entered Ukraine from Belarusian territory in Moscow's invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
In a further sign that concerns about any Belarusian role are increasing, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday about the war in Ukraine, their first call since the invasion began.
With that conflict more than four years old, the Russian army is locked in a hard and costly slog on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line that mostly snakes through eastern and southern Ukraine.
“Russia hit a dead-end on the battlefield, so it terrorizes Ukraine with deliberate strikes on city centers,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said in a post on X, in the wake of the weekend barrage that killed two people and damaged buildings across the Ukrainian capital.
With American-made air defense missiles in short supply because of the Iran war, Russian missiles are harder for Ukraine to stop. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to stop the fighting made little progress and have now stalled.
In his call with Lukashenko, Macron “underscored the risks for Belarus of allowing itself to be dragged into Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine,” according to a presidential aide in the French leader’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the presidential palace’s practices. Macron also spoke Sunday with Zelenskyy.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who arrived by train for her first visit to Kyiv on Monday, echoed that France's main goal is to send a warning to Belarus.
“Lukashenko’s regime knows well what needs to be done to improve ties with the European Union, but it isn’t happening, instead hybrid attacks, nuclear blackmail and threats to the entire region continue,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press on Sunday.
A terse readout released by the Belarusian presidential press service said that the call took place “on the French side’s initiative” and that the two leaders discussed “regional issues” and the relations of Belarus with the European Union and France.
Lukashenko, who has governed his country of some 9.5 million people with an iron fist for more than three decades, relies on the Kremlin for cheap energy, loans and other support. Western countries have repeatedly slapped sanctions on Belarus, including for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory to invade Ukraine.
More recently, Lukashenko has been trying to improve ties with the West. Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners as part of deals that lifted some U.S. sanctions.
Sunday’s heavy bombardment included Russia’s powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile, which can carry multiple warheads. Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted it can travel up to 10 times the speed of sound and evade air defense systems.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence services had received tipoffs from the United States and European countries that Russia was preparing to launch an Oreshnik.
In addition to the two deaths, at least 91 people were wounded in Sunday's barrage, according to Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv City Administration.
The intense assault damaged buildings across the city, including near government offices, residential buildings, schools and a market, Ukrainian authorities said. Shattered glass still littered sidewalks on Monday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday led ambassadors from more than 70 countries on a visit to the sites of the Kyiv strikes. He urged the international community to step up pressure on Moscow and ensure Ukraine gets more air defense support.
“Every such strike only demonstrates yet again the true nature of Putin’s regime — the regime that doesn’t recognize human life, international law, or borders,” Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, wrote on Telegram after witnessing the attack's aftermath.
In other developments Monday:
Russia’s Federal Security Service said that divers found magnetic mines attached to the hull of a liquefied petroleum gas tanker in the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga. The tanker Arrhenius was bound for Samsun, Turkey, it said, adding that the limpet mines were made in a NATO member country. Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.
Meanwhile, a Russian missile hit a business in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Derhachi, killing two people and wounding 19 others Monday, Kharkiv regional administration head Oleh Syniehubov said. Seventeen people were hospitalized.
Associated Press writer John Leicester contributed to this report from Paris.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian servicemen of the Cerberus Ground Unmanned Systems Company of the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Third Army Corps, conduct a drill with a combat ground drone during a training at the polygon in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
Ukrainian servicemen of the Cerberus Ground Unmanned Systems Company of the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Third Army Corps, conduct a drill with a combat ground drone during a training at the polygon in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
Rescue workers try to put out a fire at a residential building after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Red Cross volunteers help an injured woman in a shelter after a Russian strike on a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
