Why John Cornyn, a Senate GOP stalwart, could lose his Texas primary – DNYUZ

FORT WORTH — Barely a year ago, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) almost became the Senate Most powerful Republican. A former lieutenant to Sen. Mitch McConnell when the Kentuckian was majority leader, Cornyn built a reputation over more than two decades in the Senate as a staunch conservative who could still compromise with Democrats, a huge prolific fundraiser and architect of the Republican takeover of what is now the nation’s largest red state. He demolished every primary challenger he faced in three re-election races.

On Tuesday, he could lose everything.

Cornyn, 74, faces a formidable Republican primary challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt despite Cornyn’s huge spending advantage. Cornyn and his allies in Washington invested $69 million in ads in his defense, helping make the primary one of the most expensive on record. according to AdImpact.

Yet polls show Cornyn trailing or even running with Paxton, despite the attorney general’s many legal and personal controversies, such as his 2023 impeachment by the state House of Representatives on charges of corruption and abuse of office to cover up an affair.

A Politics Project poll from the University of Texas-Texas conducted last month and released last week found a close race, with 36 percent of likely primary voters supporting Paxton, 34 percent supporting Cornyn and 26 percent supporting Hunt.

Cornyn says losing to Paxton would threaten his life’s work — and the Republicans’ hold on his seat.

“I cannot in good conscience entrust this task to someone as corrupt as Ken Paxton, someone who would jeopardize what I have been working on for decades now, which is building the Republican Party in Texas,” Cornyn said in an interview.

The stakes might be higher than Cornyn’s career. Paxton and Hunt are widely seen as more vulnerable in the general election than Cornyn, who easily won re-election even in strong Democratic years. The prospect of Paxton in particular as a candidate has given Democrats hope that they could win a Texas Senate seat for the first time in nearly four decades.

Two prominent Democrats — Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico — face off Tuesday for the nomination, and Democrats view above-average turnout in early voting as a positive sign for November.

Cornyn is also a major financial asset to his party. He is one of the most effective fundraisers to ever serve in the Senate, bringing in more than $414 million for his fellow Republicans during his term.

In this year’s primaries, he has the support of several of his Senate peers, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (Republican of South Dakota) and Senator Tim Scott (Republican of South Carolina), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

But the one support that could save Cornyn – that of President Donald Trump – has eluded him.

It’s not for lack of effort. Thune urged Trump to support Cornyn, arguing that Republicans would likely have to spend millions more to retain their seats if Cornyn lost his primary.

“Almost every time we talk, we talk about Texas,” Thune told reporters last week.

Paxton’s allies countered that Cornyn might not be as strong in the general election as party leaders hoped. Gregg Keller, who runs a super PAC supporting Paxton, said much of the Texas Republican base hates Cornyn and could stay home in November if Cornyn pulls off a primary victory.

“These Texas MAGA voters — they’re not going to show up in the general election for John Cornyn,” Keller said.

Unlike Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), whom Trump is working to defeat in his May primary, Cornyn voted to acquit Trump in his impeachment trial in 2021. But Cornyn later suggested that Trump could not win the 2024 election, saying he believed “President Trump’s time has passed.”

Trump, in turn, ridiculed Cornyn as a “RINO” — a Republican in name only — and warned that he would lose his next election with “even modestly qualified opposition.” Cornyn is “always quick to surrender to the Democrats, giving them whatever they want,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023.

Cornyn said he regretted doubting Trump, while pointing out that other Trump allies — including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — had clashed with him in the past.

“Look, in the heat of the moment, people sometimes say things that they come back to later regret or reconsider,” Cornyn said. “The president, he’s a force of nature. He’s still going strong and I think he’s done a lot of good things for the country. So I hate to admit it, but I was wrong.”

If Cornyn loses, he would be the first sitting senator from either party to succumb to a primary challenger in nearly a decade. But polls suggest Cornyn likely won’t lose outright on Tuesday, as the primary runoff will take place on May 26 if no candidate wins a majority of the vote — raising the prospect of 12 more weeks of Republican infighting as Democrats likely begin to consolidate around one candidate.

Many of Cornyn’s vulnerabilities in a Republican primary stem from what made him a formidable figure in the Senate. His work on a bipartisan gun safety bill has been criticized by the right in a state where the Second Amendment is politically sacrosanct. Paxton also blasted Cornyn’s for helping refugees settle in the United States and for calling Trump’s border wall “naive” in 2016.

“He’s been doing this for 24 years. People are just ready for a change, ready for someone who has more energy and has the ability to go fight for them in Washington,” Paxton said shortly after a rally Saturday in Fort Worth. “John Cornyn doesn’t do that.”

Hunt, who supports term limits and says he would serve no more than two, described Cornyn in an interview as “a Lincoln project, a Bush-era Republican project.” — which is fine, but the days of this guy and the days of this type of politician are over. (The Lincoln Project is a political action committee founded by Republicans opposed to Trump.)

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), who supports Paxton, said Cornyn was a “nice gentleman” who he would never disparage. But Republican primary voters will “walk through fire to vote for [Paxton] Tuesday,” he said.

Even Cruz, whom Cornyn managed $500,000 during his difficult 2024 re-election campaign, declined to support Cornyn, saying, “I trust the voters of Texas to make this decision.” »

Cornyn said he doesn’t regret his work on bipartisan legislation, including the gun bill. He says the measure has been mischaracterized as a gun control measure, when it primarily focuses on mental health and school safety. He still votes in line with Trump 99% of the time.

“Previously, trying to find bipartisan solutions was generally applauded,” Cornyn said. “When you agree with someone eight times out of ten, what do you call them? You call them a friend and an ally, not a 20 percent traitor. Well, in this environment, people tend to focus on the 20 percent, and I think that makes legislation very difficult.”

Cornyn also pointed to Paxton’s scandals as a sign of unreliability.

The state House impeached Paxton in 2023 on corruption charges that he abused his office to cover up an affair, although the state Senate later acquitted him.

His wife, Angela Paxton, said last year that she would divorce Paxton on “biblical grounds,” citing “recent discoveries” and infidelity.

Paxton was separately under federal investigation into corruption allegations, although the Justice Department declined to pursue charges in early 2025. He also settled a state securities fraud case, paying nearly $300,000 in restitution.

Paxton’s supporters dismiss the controversies.

Anita Sheppard, a Paxton supporter from Fort Worth who has supported Cornyn in the past, said she believes Paxton’s allegations of wrongdoing have been settled by the state Senate with his acquittal.

“I’m a big Christian,” Sheppard, a devout Methodist, said at the Paxton rally Saturday. “It’s dirty laundry, you know. But at the same time, my interest in Paxton is what he can do to help Trump. That’s my main interest.”

At a Cornyn rally Saturday in Woodlands, a prosperous Houston suburb, Nelda Blair blamed the rise of social media for making conservative voters jaded about revelations that in the past would have derailed Paxton’s campaign.

Blair, a real estate attorney and longtime Cornyn supporter, voted early for Cornyn. But she said the conservatives she knows in Montgomery County — among the reddest in the state — are “still very divided” between Cornyn and Paxton.

Leonard Chan, another Cornyn supporter at the Woodlands rally, said he would rather vote for Talarico in the general election than support “a party standard-bearer who is so corrupt.”

Cornyn ran to succeed McConnell as Senate Republican leader in 2024, but lost in Thune. (Paxton vocally opposed Cornyn.) His defeat led to speculation that he might not run for reelection. But when asked if he ever considered retiring, Cornyn let out a hearty laugh.

“I’m healthy and I still enjoy my job, and frankly, I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else,” Cornyn said. “I will probably never get rich, and as long as I continue to contribute and represent the state I love, I see no reason to hang up my spurs.”

Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.

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