Posts Tagged ‘2026 Texas Senate Race’

Paxton Runs Against Cornyn

Wednesday, April 9th, 2025

As previously rumored, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is running against incumbent John Cornyn for the 2026 Republican senate nomination.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made his long-rumored bid for U.S. Senate official, looking to knock off Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) from the seat he’s held for two decades.

“I’m excited to do this here, I am running for U.S. Senate against John Cornyn,” Paxton said on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show on Tuesday night. “We have a great senator in Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). But it’s time we have another one who stands up for America and stands by Donald Trump.”

In the brief interview, Paxton hit Cornyn over his 2022 gun reform package that resulted in the senator being booed on stage at the Texas GOP convention, and the senior senator’s “opposition to funding a border wall.”

His official campaign statement read, “I’m running for U.S. Senate to fight for President Trump’s agenda and take a sledgehammer to the D.C. establishment. John Cornyn has been in Washington for over two decades, and he has turned his back on President Trump and the America First agenda time after time.”

“He’s said President Trump’s ‘time has passed him by’ and called President Trump’s border wall ‘naive.’ Texans deserve far better than a Senator who thinks it’s ‘naive’ to build a border wall to protect our citizens. It’s crystal clear that it’s time for a change. I’m a battle-tested Attorney General and conservative warrior who’s secured major victories against the establishment, the corrupt Biden Administration, and woke corporations. Now, I’m ready to take that same toughness to the U.S. Senate.”

Paxton’s campaign website went live shortly before his Fox appearance.

The attorney general foreshadowed this move last month, telling Punchbowl News that he would jump in if he could collect $20 million in commitments by June.

The matchup is both titanic and long expected. Paxton and Cornyn have traded blows frequently on social media, including the senator telling the attorney general, “It’s hard to run from prison, Ken,” amidst the 2023 impeachment proceedings.

Paxton was acquitted on all counts of impeachment by the Texas Senate after a 12-day trial in September.

Yeah, that prison quip may turn out to be as ill-advised as Obama’s slam of Donald Trump in 2012.

This is likely to be a bruising, big-money race, and Texas hasn’t had two such high profile incumbents run against each other since Kay Baily Hutchison unsuccessfully tried to eject Rick Perry from the governor’s mansion in 2010.

With his record of suing both the Obama and Biden Administrations for their unconstitutional, radical left-wing policies, Paxton is much more popular with the Republican base than Cornyn. With all his previous legal issues resolved and the dramatic failure of the Dade Phelan-led impeachment effort against him, Paxton is better positioned to run than ever, and Cornyn is arguable the most vulnerable he’s ever been. But Cornyn still have all the advantages of incumbency, including juicy campaign contributions from a wide variety of business and special interest PACs.

This will be a very interesting race.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 12 Comments »

Paxton Gunning For Cornyn In 2026?

Monday, March 24th, 2025

Compared to most states, Texas has seen a very little recent change in office-holders elected statewide:

  • Republican John Cornyn has been a Senator since December 2, 2002.
  • Republican Ted Cruz has been a Senator since January 3, 2013.
  • Republican Greg Abbott has been Governor since January 20, 2015.
  • Republican Dan Patrick has likewise been Lieutenant Governor since January 20, 2015.
  • Republican Ken Paxton has been Attorney General since January 5, 2015.
  • Republican Glenn Hegar has been Comptroller of Public Accounts since January 2, 2015.
  • Republican Dawn Buckingham has only been Land Commissioner since January 10, 2023, since previous Land Commissioner George P. Bush unsuccessfully tried to primary Paxton for Attorney General in 2022.
  • Republican Sid Miller has been Agriculture Commissioner since January 2, 2015.

    • The Railroad Commission and statewide court races haven’t been quite as static. Republican Jim Wright managed to successfully primary Ryan Sitton for his Railroad Commission spot in 2020, and some retirements and federal appointments have resulted in a bit more change in the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals, but even there reelection has been the norm.

    This year, however, the logjam at the top of the ticket finally seems to be breaking up. Hegar is stepping down to become A&M system chancellor, with Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick running to succeed him as Comptroller, along with former state senator Don Huffines. And now Paxton is saying that he might run for Cornyn’s senate seat in 2026.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton is nearing a 2026 bid for U.S. Senate against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), depending on if he can obtain $20 million in fundraising commitments in the next couple of months.

    On a trip to Washington, D.C. during which he met with various parties, including the White House, Paxton interviewed with Punchbowl News to discuss the long-rumored 2026 bid.

    “I think I can win if I have $20 million. I’ve run these primaries in Texas before. I honestly don’t see how [Cornyn] overcomes his numbers,” he told Punchbowl.

    Public polling has been fairly scant on the matchup. The Texas Politics Project’s poll earlier this month put Paxton’s net approval rating at +51 percent among Republicans compared to Cornyn’s +28 percent.

    A Hobby School of Public Affairs poll from February showed both candidates registering around 70 percent among Republicans who said they’d “definitely consider” or “might consider” voting for them in the 2026 primary; 15 percent said they’d never vote for Cornyn in the primary, while 19 percent said that about Paxton.

    Paxton added, “I think it’s just time. He’s had his chance. He hasn’t performed well, and the voters know it. You can go a long time without people paying attention. And they’re paying attention now. If the numbers were the other way, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

    The coveted endorsement from President Donald Trump will be key in the race. Three years ago, Paxton eventually received Trump’s backing after the then-former president very much considered backing his primary challenger George P. Bush. Cornyn received Trump’s backing in 2020 when he dispatched Dwayne Stovall and the GOP primary field by a mile.

    Paxton has long cozied up to Trump, and has been among his most active allies in legal fights across the board. But Cornyn has increasingly appealed to Trump as the 2026 election gets closer, and he’s expected to have the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee with its deep pockets supplementing his own.

    There’s long been disgruntlement about Cornyn among movement conservatives who think he’s a squish on a wide range of issues, from the Second Amendment to limiting illegal immigration, though Cornyn seems to have repented of his previous record of playing footsie with “comprehensive immigration reform” (i.e. illegal alien amnesty). Despite those misgivings, Cornyn has consistently trounced underfunded primary challengers like Dwayne Stovall and Steve Stockman by comfortable margins.

    Paxton would be a different kettle of fish.

    With his record of suing both the Obama and Biden Administrations for their unconstitutional, radical left-wing policies, Paxton is much more popular with the Republican base than Cornyn. Also, with all his previous legal issues resolved and the dramatic failure of the Dade Phelan-led impeachment effort against him, Paxton is better positioned to run than ever. But, as the above list of long-tenured officials shows, successfully primarying a statewide Republican in Texas is an extremely difficult proposition. Cornyn has already said that he’s running for a fifth term, and he’ll still have all the advantages of incumbency, including juicy campaign contributions from a wide variety of business and special interest PACs.

    Another potential Cornyn primary challenger is U.S. Representative Wesley Hunt. Hunt is sufficiently conservative, but I don’t see him gaining much traction against two heavyweight opponents like Cornyn and Paxton, both of whom have already run multiple successful statewide campaigns.

    If Paxton runs, the 2026 senate race will be very interesting…

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »