The Republican primary for this year’s U.S. Senate election in Texas began, unofficially, two years ago with shots fired over social media.
“It will be difficult for [GOP Sen. John Cornyn] to be an effective leader since he is anti-Trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026,” wrote Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on X. “Republicans deserve better.”
Senator Cornyn – a veteran incumbent who has held his seat since 2003, spent six years in Senate leadership, and chaired the party’s Senate campaign arm – replied exactly one minute later: “Hard to run from prison, Ken.”
Why We Wrote This
The fierce primary battle for the Republican nod in Texas’ U.S. Senate race illustrates tensions between factions of the GOP. Some national Republicans are concerned the seat could be at risk, even in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide in three decades.
The election is now days away, and recent polls are showing Mr. Paxton with a narrow lead. With U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt also on the ballot, the bitter and expensive primary could be headed for a two-candidate runoff election in May.
In one sense, the race is a typical clash between an “establishment” figure and more hard-line, partisan challengers. But unseating a longtime incumbent is an inherently risky move for a party. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has thrown its support behind Senator Cornyn, warning that nominating a controversial figure like Attorney General Paxton could threaten the GOP’s decades-long control of Texas. Mr. Paxton has the backing of MAGA-affiliated groups like the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action, in a race that is spotlighting bitter tensions between the Trump-era GOP and the party’s old guard. So far, President Donald Trump himself has stayed out of it, saying only that he likes all the candidates.
“Right now, we’re seeing signs that there isn’t a lot of party spirit” among Texas Republicans, says James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Historically Republicans have been able to close those gaps” and unify around the primary winner, he adds. “But what Republican elites have been fearing is coming true. This primary is going to leave a lot of deep bruises on the Republican side.”
Whoever emerges as the victor will face the winner of the March 3 primary for the Democratic Party nominee. U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico are driving up enthusiasm and high early voter turnout in that race.
An establishment senator attempts to adapt
During his four terms in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Cornyn has made some adjustments to his tone and policies as his party has shifted rightward. The Bush-era GOP – which included many fiscal conservatives with more moderate views on social issues – has evolved into a more populist party that places a higher value on culture-war issues and often views working across party lines as betrayal.
Senator Cornyn has at times struggled to adapt.
In 2016 the Texas senator expressed concern that Mr. Trump could be “an albatross” for down-ballot GOP candidates. He voted to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory citing a lack of evidence for alleged voter fraud. He condemned the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, but later voted against forming a commission to investigate the insurrection. A final straw for some Republicans came in 2022, when he led the passage of a gun-safety law through Congress in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
A narrow majority of Texas Republicans say they approve of the job he’s doing – 51%, according to the Texas Politics Project – but most polls have shown him running behind Mr. Paxton in the primary contest. The fact that Mr. Cornyn has managed to stay competitive is in part thanks to the support he’s been getting from national Republicans.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a memo to donors this month saying that Senator Cornyn “is the only Republican candidate who reliably wins a general election matchup.”
“Paxton puts the seat at risk,” the memo stressed. “We cannot take Texas for granted.”
Last week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Politico that the Texas seat could flip if Senator Cornyn loses the primary, “depending on who the Democrats nominate.”
This establishment support has helped bring in tens of millions of dollars in donations. The Cornyn campaign ended 2025 with about $6 million cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission data. Mr. Paxton, meanwhile, ended 2025 with half that.
A MAGA firebrand draws loyalty
But Mr. Paxton is already a household name in Texas – and widely widely popular among the state’s conservative base. Having ridden the tea party wave to become Texas Attorney General in 2014, he has fashioned himself into a MAGA warrior.
While Senator Cornyn was preparing to vote to certify the 2020 election, Mr. Paxton was on a stage at the National Mall with Mr. Trump at his “Stop the Steal” rally, where the president urged supporters to go to the Capitol. Prior to that, Mr. Paxton had sued to void the election results in four states, alleging voter fraud. (The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of standing.) During the years when Mr. Trump was out of power, Attorney General Paxton sued the Biden administration 106 times.
This pugilistic approach has won him deep support from the conservative grassroots. Despite his fundraising deficit, he has consistently led Senator Cornyn in the polls.
“His supporters are incredibly loyal to him,” says Renée Cross, a political scientist at the University of Houston.
The most recent polls show Mr. Paxton leading by anywhere from one to 12 points – despite a litany of public and private scandals that have surrounded him for years.
He faced charges of securities fraud for a decade, finally settling the case in 2024. The Republican-controlled state legislature impeached him in 2023 on charges of bribery and abuse of office. (He was acquitted by the state Senate.) Last summer, his wife, Angela – a state senator and a devout Christian – announced that she had filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.” In court filings, she alleged adultery.
At least one conservative Christian leader in the state broke with Mr. Paxton after the divorce became public. The Cornyn campaign launched a parody dating website highlighting the scandals.
Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor
But Paxton supporters interviewed by the Monitor said the controversies didn’t matter to them.
“Unfortunately, when it’s politics we go back to middle school, and it gets childish and it gets petty,” said Tomas Mendoza at a campaign event for Representative Hunt last week in Denton, outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Mr. Mendoza had already voted for Mr. Paxton, but as a public official – he’s a city councilor in nearby Justin – he said he still wants to get to know all the candidates.
The corruption attacks on the attorney general are just political opportunism, he added. He felt he couldn’t judge Mr. Paxton over the divorce either.
“It happens in the best families, and I wish that was not the case,” he said.
Someone else who has refrained from attacking Mr. Paxton’s scandals is Representative Hunt. At the campaign event that night, the two-term congressman and former Army officer only criticized the attorney general’s age, noting that if elected he would be serving into his 70s.
Trump declines to endorse in a tight race
Also a staunch conservative and one of just five Black Republicans in Congress, Representative Hunt’s presence in the race makes it more likely that no candidate will achieve more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday, meaning the top two vote-getters would head to a May runoff election.
Dragging out what has already been an expensive and vitriolic race worries many Republican Party leaders, who have reportedly been pleading with Mr. Trump to make an endorsement in the race.
But so far the president has been doing the opposite. Last week he appeared with all three candidates at an event in Corpus Christi to promote his energy policies.
“I support all three,” he said two weeks ago. “They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. And you’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens.”
For some Paxton supporters, the president’s endorsement isn’t necessary.
A few dozen had gathered early in the morning last week at a bar in Little Elm, a Dallas suburb, for a campaign event with the attorney general. Because of the last-minute event in Corpus Christi, Mr. Paxton didn’t show.
None of them minded being stood up. They already knew what they needed to know about the two frontrunners in the race.
“Ken Paxton has always stood up for the things that mattered to us and never failed with that, which is the opposite of Cornyn,” said Jerry Fuller, co-founder of a local conservative activist group.
“I’m not waiting to see if Trump endorses Paxton or not. I really don’t care,” he added. “We made up our mind a long time before Trump did.”
In addition to this story, the Monitor also reported on the Democratic primary in Texas’ U.S. Senate race. Read it here.
