EXCLUSIVE: John Cornyn Slightly Ahead Of Closest Competition In Brutal Senate Primary, Poll Shows

Three months before Texas voters head to the 2026 primary election, Republican Sen. John Cornyn has carved out a slight lead in the Lone Star State’s brutal Republican primary, according to a new poll.

The survey, commissioned by the pro-Cornyn super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority, finds that 35 percent of likely Republican primary voters support Cornyn, while 33 percent support Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 18 percent support Rep. Wesley Hunt and 14 percent are undecided. Cornyn has shown positive movement over Paxton since October, with Hunt running double digits behind the 23-year incumbent, according to a poll score obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Former Biden administration official on unaccompanied children says she doesn’t believe in expulsion)

Although Hunt’s entry into the contest on Oct. 6 threatened to upend the Senate battle between Cornyn and Paxton, the two-term House lawmaker continues to lag behind the duo.

“The data is clear, this continues to be a two-horse race and Texans don’t buy Wesley Hunt’s bullshit,” Conservative Majority Texans executive director Aaron Whitehead said in a statement. “Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or needs to go to country school.”

The survey of 600 likely primary voters was conducted between November 20 and 25 and has a margin of error of 4%. Conservative-majority Texans hired Peak Insights to conduct the poll.

A Hunt campaign spokesperson accused the pro-Cornyn group of working to “fabricate numbers” and pointed the DCNF to a recent survey commissioned by a pro-Hunt super PAC showing the congressman had a slight lead over the incumbent.

The poll, released Nov. 24, shows Hunt in second place ahead of Cornyn by one point within the survey’s 3.3 percent margin of error. The pro-Hunt poll found that 36% of likely voters supported Paxton, 26% supported Hunt, 25% supported Cornyn and 14% were still undecided.

“It’s no surprise that the same campaign and DC machine that spent $50 million supporting a zombie candidate is now promoting a poll that bears no resemblance to any credible public survey in Texas,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“Every reputable poll released recently shows the same thing: Wesley Hunt is surging and John Cornyn has been pushed into third place,” the spokesperson added.

The pro-Hunt survey is the first poll in Decision Desk headquarters’ pool of public and private polls on the three-way primary where Hunt leads Cornyn..

If the election were held today, no candidate would win a majority of votes in the March 3 primary, according to a recent poll of the race. As a result, the top two vote-getters are then expected to face off in a runoff election on May 26, prolonging the increasingly bitter fight in some of the country’s most expensive media markets.

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 19: Chairman Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) (L) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on November 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Net favorable opinions of all three candidates have fallen over the past month, the survey found, as groups supporting Cornyn and Hunt have spent millions on negative advertising across Texas.

Paxton’s campaign and allied groups have largely stayed out of the publicity war, as virtually all polls show the candidate is likely to secure a spot in the runoff election.

The pro-Cornyn survey found that Hunt’s net supporters declined by six points among likely primary voters between October and November 2025, although a majority of respondents expressed no opinion or were unfamiliar with the candidate. By comparison, only 4% of likely voters did not know Cornyn; 5% did not know Paxton.

The survey also found that Hunt was losing strength in his national media market of Houston.

Hunt’s approval fell -25 percentage points over the past month – from 67/3% favorable to 51/12% – in the Houston media market, according to the survey.

The survey memo included an oversample of Houston primary voters, which has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.

The pro-Cornyn group recently released an ad highlighting Hunt’s missed votes in Congress, calling the candidate “Mr. No Show.” Hunt largely attributed his absences to campaigning during the 2024 cycle and spending time with his family following the birth of his son.

The poll found that Cornyn’s net support fell eight points between October and November, even though 57 percent of likely primary voters still expressed a favorable opinion of him.

Cornyn, buoyed by more than $40 million in advertising spent on his behalf so far, has vastly improved his poll numbers since the early months of the race. A May 2025 poll found Cornyn trailing Paxton by double digits, but he has since gradually eroded the attorney general’s lead.

The survey also finds that Paxton’s net benefits fell 19 points between October and November. The attorney general has faced a series of attacks over alleged ethical lapses and is estranged from his wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, who filed for divorce over the summer on “biblical grounds.”

The pro-Cornyn poll largely follows a Ragnar Research survey commissioned by the pro-Cornyn Senate Leadership Fund and released November 24. The poll, with a margin of error of 4 percent, shows Cornyn leading the primary field with 32 percent support, followed by Paxton with 31 percent support and Hunt with 21 percent.

The three men are vying for support from President Donald Trump, although the president has not yet indicated he will support any specific candidate.

Texas Democrats are hoping a long, drawn-out fight for the Republican nomination could hurt which Republican candidate advances to the general election.

Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett could make the increasingly charged Senate race even more complicated. The anti-Trump campaigner, who led the Democratic primary campaign in several hypothetical matchups, said she would announce whether she plans to enter the race before the Dec. 8 deadline.

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