As the White House sees it, Trump now has three friends in the race, and Cornyn and his challengers — Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt — have leaned into being Trump loyalists throughout the primary, a dynamic that the White House is in no hurry to change.

Cornyn recently asked Trump for his endorsement, the senator told the Houston Chronicle, and Trump told Cornyn that he’s not ready to grant it.

“They need Cornyn on good behavior,” said a second Trump ally close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss the motivations.

“Senator Cornyn speaks to President Trump regularly and works closely with the White House,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said in an email. “He is proud to have voted 99.3% with President Trump while in office.”

Texas’s primary is seven weeks away but the White House has never been keen on involving itself in this particular contest.

Asked in November how the White House was thinking about the Texas race, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair told POLITICO, “Texas will definitely elect a Republican senator. Texas will be fine.”

While Cassidy, Collins and Cornyn are the only sitting Republican senators without a Trump endorsement, there are two House Republicans pursuing higher office that don’t have one, either.

In Georgia, Republican Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins are running in a Senate primary that includes former college football coach Derek Dooley, and the White House is not making any moves there yet, either.

The White House is opting to not weigh in, in part, because it cannot afford to upset either one of the GOP congressmen and risk losing their vote when Speaker Mike Johnson faces razor thin margins in the House.

“We’ve got a couple of friends in the race. We’ll have to see how it plays out. The president will weigh in when he’s ready,” Blair said.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.