Get ready for John Cornyn vs. Ken Paxton: The Sequel Nobody Asked For.
After nearly $95 million in attack ads, divorce drama and enough Republican infighting to require protective year, Texas voters have generously decided we all get to do this again in May.
Yes, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton are headed to a May 26 runoff after neither managed to clear 50 percent in the Republican primary for Cornyn’s Senate seat.
Texas’ senior senator barely edged our scandal plagued attorney general by a percentage point, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a runoff.
The vote Tuesday came after a brutal $95 million intraparty foodfight, sorry “primary,” that also included U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.
And judging by Cornyn’s language Tuesday night, he’s prepared for more mudslinging.
“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” Cornyn said Tuesday night, according to the Texas Tribune.
For his part, Paxton tried to sing a few notes of “Kumbaya.”
“As Attorney General, I’ve won three elections, and I’ve won those general elections because I focused on uniting our party,” he said, according to the Tribune. “We still have an important runoff ahead, no doubt. But I think everyone in this room, everyone in Texas and everyone in Washington knows where this is headed. I will be the Republican nominee, and we must stay focused, because the Democrats have never been more radical.”
The stakes in all of this? Not just who gets to be the Republican nominee in November, but which wing of the GOP gets to claim Texas.
Cornyn, first elected to the Senate in 2002 and one of the longest-serving senators in Texas history, has never lost a race in more than 35 years of elected office. He helped engineer the era of Republican dominance in Texas and has served in the upper ranks of Senate GOP leadership. But this time, he’s facing what even his allies would admit is the most serious threat of his career.
That threat is Paxton, the MAGA favorite who has survived securities fraud charges, a 2023 impeachment (in which the Texas Senate found him not guilty), and a nearly decade’s worth of scandals.
Paxton has survived an impeachment by the Texas Legislature, a biblically-charged divorce, a decade of securities fraud charges, and he’s also become a multimillionaire during his time in public office.
He’s also won statewide three times, including while under indictment, and he argues Republicans need a nominee who excites the grassroots.
Cornyn’s allies in Washington are not subtle about their preference. They’ve poured nearly $70 million into boosting him and tearing down Paxton, worried that a Paxton nomination could endanger GOP control of the Capitol in a midterm year where Democrats are energized and already outvoting Republicans in early voting. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has lobbied former President Donald Trump on Cornyn’s behalf for months. Trump, who says he’s friends with all three candidates, hasn’t endorsed.
If you enjoy campaign ads that feel like Thanksgiving dinner arguments with better lighting, this race has delivered.
A Cornyn-aligned ad frames the choice as between “the wife cheater and fraud or the Texas workhorse,” referencing Paxton’s ongoing divorce, alleged affair and questions about assets accumulated in office. Paxton has responded with a positive spot featuring his daughter and son-in-law praising him as a family man, while accusing Cornyn of running a desperate campaign “clinging to power.”
Meanwhile, Hunt jumped in last October, pitching himself as the younger, baggage-free version of Paxton who’s closely aligned with Trump and capable of carrying on that agenda longer than his older rivals. Both Cornyn and Paxton allies spent millions attacking Hunt in the final stretch, which to Hunt proved he’s “right over the target zone.”
And lately Hunt has had some controversy of his own. A New York Times investigation found that two anonymous X accounts, one seemingly tied to Wesley Hunt’s Senate campaign and the other linked to an outside group backing him, have publicly shared private polling, strategy, messaging advice and ad-buying details, raising questions about whether they are skirting federal laws that prohibit coordination between candidates and super PACs.
Unfortunately for Hunt, that was the biggest splash he made, mainstream press-wise. Sadly for him, it wasn’t enough to make the runoff.
So where does that leave us? With a May 26 runoff election that could favor Paxton, as runoffs typically only draw the hardest-core voters.
And hovering over all of it is the possibility of a Trump endorsement in the runoff, which would likely trigger an even more frantic lobbying effort from both camps.