As Texas gets redder, John Cornyn could face toughest primary season of his career

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WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn is facing what could be the toughest primary challenge of his career as the state party takes a decidedly rightward turn and his popularity among Republican voters dips from 2020 highs.

It’s a remarkable turn for the four-term senator who — before last year losing his bid for party leader — had never lost an election in his life, served in the highest echelons of the Senate Republican Conference, had an early hand in the Republican takeover of Texas and secured a host of legislative wins directly impacting the state.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has repeatedly hinted that he’s interested in challenging Cornyn in the Republican primary, saying on Fox News he could be making moves soon.

“As far as my plans, right now, I don't know. I'm just going to serve as attorney general,” Paxton said. “I'm looking potentially at the U.S. Senate. We'll look at that over the next couple of months.”

Cornyn’s office confirmed last week that he is seeking reelection.

But polling suggests that if Cornyn and Paxton were to have a primary today, Paxton would win. Among Republican-identifying voters, Cornyn has an approval rating of 48% — one of the lowest of state-wide office holders, according to a polling aggregate by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Paxton, meanwhile, has an approval rating of 60% among Republican-identifying voters. Texas’ other senator, Ted Cruz, has an approval rating of 78% among Republicans.

If Cornyn were to retire, several members of the U.S. House could also launch a bid. U.S. Reps. Beth Van Duyne of Irving, Wesley Hunt of Houston and Ronny Jackson of Amarillo have all been discussed in Republican circles, though none have publicly vocalized their intentions as Paxton has.

Jackson was Trump’s physician in the White House, and Trump’s endorsement in his first race for Congress in 2020 helped Jackson beat controversy in the primary over allegations of workplace abuse during his time in the White House. Jackson is an impressive fundraiser for a House member in a deeply red seat, raising more than $6 million in the last election cycle. He invested in Spanish-language ads in 2022 to raise his name recognition among voters outside his district. Jackson’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Van Duyne was the first mayor to endorse Trump when she was mayor of Irving, and was the 2024 Texas GOP victory chair, campaigning for Cruz and Trump.

Her campaign didn’t say if she was considering entering the primary. “Beth is focused on delivering President Trump’s America First agenda: secure borders, confronting Mexican cartels, tax relief and lower costs for working families, American energy dominance, and an economy with rising wages,” her campaign said in a statement.

Hunt led much of the Trump campaign’s outreach to Black men in the last election cycle and interviewed to be his Defense secretary late last year. Trump endorsed Hunt in his Congressional races in 2020 and 2022, and Hunt has proven himself a prodigious fundraiser, raising more than $7 million in his first U.S. House race. Hunt was recognized with a primetime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention this year. Hunt’s campaign declined to comment for this story.

But Cornyn is not making any signs of stopping. He has taken on more committee assignments this year — several that will be central to some of the biggest policy priorities of the Trump presidency. He finished 2024 with $4.1 million in cash on hand, according to a source briefed on his fundraising operation, and has been meeting with some of his biggest supporters throughout Texas since the beginning of the year.

When asked if he would still run for reelection shortly after losing the leadership race, Cornyn said, “absolutely.”

Early support set a smooth 2020 path

Cornyn has faced primary challenges from the right before and mobilized his formidable operation to quash them.

He ran against a crowded primary in 2014 with seven Republicans hoping to unseat him, including then-U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman. The Friendswood Republican at the time cited Cornyn’s distaste for Sen. Ted Cruz’s filibuster against government funding legislation that would fund the Affordable Care Act. Cornyn, who was Senate minority whip at the time, said the tactic was not effective, though he shared Cruz's antipathy for the health care law.

Cornyn obliterated the opposition. He won his primary with 62% of the vote. Stockman secured just over 17%. Cornyn raised over $11 million in that race. Stockman raised just over $115,000.

In 2020, Cornyn faced a potential challenge from U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Sherman, who was then a state senator. Fallon said at the time that Cornyn “has had 18 years. Some of the things you agree with until you check under the hood” as he launched an exploratory committee into a Senate run.

But Cornyn was armed not only with his bountiful funds but also endorsements from across the Republican ideological spectrum. Cruz endorsed Cornyn in December 2018 — two years early and less than a month after securing his own victory against Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Trump also endorsed Cornyn ahead of the 2020 primary.

Fallon eventually decided against running in the primary and ran for the U.S. House that year. Cornyn won reelection handily. Fallon did not respond to a request for comment.

This time, Cornyn has not yet secured the endorsements that helped stave off a primary challenge in 2020. Cruz, whom Cornyn helped with over $500,000 in his own competitive reelection campaign last year, has not endorsed in the Senate primary.

When asked if he had spoken to Cornyn about endorsing him, Cruz said “it’s early to worry about politics in a race two years away. John Cornyn and I have worked together very closely for the last 13 years, and we will continue to work together very closely.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to have those conversations,” Cruz continued when asked why he was not endorsing early like in 2018. He had the same answer when asked about a potential Paxton run.

Cruz and Paxton operate in overlapping orbits, with senior staff for Cruz previously serving in Paxton’s operation. Cruz also defended Paxton through his impeachment and enjoys considerably higher popularity among the conservative base than Cornyn.

Cruz notably voted for one of Cornyn’s opponents, the right-wing Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, in the first round of voting in the majority leader race. He would not say if he voted for Cornyn or Sen. John Thune of South Dakota in the second round. Thune won the majority leader race with 29 out of 53 votes.

Abbott’s and Patrick’s campaigns did not respond when asked if they would endorse Cornyn.

Trump’s pick

The endorsement that could count the most is Trump’s. His endorsement has catapulted multiple Republicans through crowded primaries in Texas.

The president has so far made no indication whom he would support. With the primary more than a year away, there’s plenty of time to audition for the presidential blessing.

Few have done more for Trump’s cause — and done so more brazenly — than Paxton. He led a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 election and repeatedly sued the Biden administration to stop its legislative agenda. Trump gave the attorney general a special shout out during his inauguration this year. Trump even floated his name for U.S. attorney general last year.

Cornyn, meanwhile, has appeared averse toward Trump in the past. He told reporters in May 2023 that Trump’s “time has passed him by,” suggesting that Trump didn’t have enough appeal in a general election to win. He also expressed concern in a June interview with CBS Texas about Trump’s federal indictment on keeping classified documents in his private residence, saying Trump had “created a circumstance for himself, which is, I think, very serious.”

Cornyn eventually endorsed Trump after he won the New Hampshire primary.

Since Trump won back the presidency, Cornyn has not given Trump any reason to criticize him. He has steadfastly supported all of Trump’s nominees, even his most controversial ones. He voted to advance Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, to serve as Trump’s director of national intelligence, despite misgivings even among Republicans about her past comments supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Cornyn has also joined Abbott in calling for the federal government to reimburse Texas for Operation Lone Star and is a founding member of the DOGE Caucus, aligning himself with the cost-cutting mission spearheaded by Elon Musk.

Despite his electoral doubts, Cornyn’s support for the president within the chamber has been consistent through the years. He was Senate majority whip during the first years of Trump’s presidency, herding his conference to support the president’s agenda on tax cuts and judicial nominations — including the controversial appointment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Cornyn voted more than 92% of the time with Trump’s agenda during his first presidency, and he voted for every Trump appointee in both the Executive and Judiciary at the time.

That hasn’t spared him from Trump’s criticisms, particularly over his work on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a gun safety bill passed following the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde. The bill was the first gun safety bill signed into law in decades and invested heavily in community safety measures and limited the ability of high-risk individuals to access firearms.

Trump called Cornyn a Republican in name only for his support of the bill, posting on social media at the time: “The deal on ‘Gun Control’ currently being structured and pushed in the Senate by the Radical Left Democrats, with the help of Mitch McConnell, RINO Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and others, will go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY. Republicans, be careful what you wish for!!!”

The Cornyn-Paxton feud

Cornyn and Paxton have had a storied distaste for each other. Before his time in the Senate, Cornyn served as the first Republican Texas attorney general in more than a century. He transformed the position from a sleepy government office to a major force in conservative politics.

Cornyn said he was “disturbed” by Paxton’s various legal troubles and that it was an “embarrassment” that they had not been resolved before Paxton’s 2022 primary.

Paxton has accused Cornyn of being a Republican in name only, urging someone to primary him. He rallied the MAGA base to denounce Cornyn’s bid for majority leader, writing on social media: “Republicans deserve better in their next leader and Texans deserve another conservative senator.”

The differences go beyond personality. Paxton said in early 2024 that it was “unbelievable” that Cornyn would vote for $95 billion in military aid for U.S. allies. Foreign military aid emerged as a major fault line between traditional defense Republicans and the far right last year. Cornyn shot back that Paxton’s “criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending long-standing felony charges.”

When Cornyn was eyeing a run for Senate majority leader, Paxton was vocally against the bid, writing on social media that Cornyn was “anti-Trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026.”

Cornyn replied: “Hard to run from prison, Ken.”