Texas GOP braces for explosive Senate primary
Texas Republicans are bracing for an explosive Senate primary next year in the latest chapter of an ongoing civil war that has divided the state party.
Members of the GOP raced quickly to endorse their respective candidates this week after Attorney General Ken Paxton, an ally of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, launched a primary challenge against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
The primary is likely to pit more establishment-minded conservatives against Republicans like Paxton who align themselves with President Trump’s MAGA wing, and questions are already swirling about what Trump will do.
“Donald Trump loves Ken Paxton,” said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who publicly backed Paxton on Wednesday.
“That would be very, very important whoever gets that endorsement,” he said.
Paxton also scored an endorsement from Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) on Thursday.
When asked about his thoughts on Nehls endorsing Paxton on Wednesday, Cornyn shrugged and said “it kind of doesn’t matter.”
And Cornyn has secured the backing of a number of his colleagues in the Senate, including Majority Leader John Thune (R-N.D.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.), along with Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.).
Cornyn also has the backing of the Senate Leadership Fund, a big dollar fundraising group.
Scott in his endorsement referred to Cornyn as “a leader who delivers” on Trump’s agenda and for Texans.
“He's a proven fighter, man of faith and essential part of the Republican Senate Majority,” Scott said.
Cornyn’s colleague Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is notably staying out of the fray, telling reporters that the two men “are both friends of mine.”
Some Republicans have noted the role the Republican firm Axiom Strategies is playing in the primary. Paxton has hired the firm, but Ricketts, who has endorsed Cornyn, also works with the firm. The firm also has a long history of working with Cruz.
“I think both sides are preparing for a battle royale,” said Texas Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser, who served as Cornyn’s campaign manager in the past but is unaffiliated in this race.
“You're dealing with two candidates that have strong, deep ties in the Texas Republican Party.”
One Texas Republican operative described the dynamic as “a classic case if DC vs. Texas.”
“John Cornyn is a Mitt Romney, chamber of commerce Republican and that is not where the party is anymore,” the operative said.
Polling suggests there could be vulnerability for Cornyn among the state’s grassroots.
Cornyn’s favorability back home sits at about 49 percent among Republican voters, according to polls tracked by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. About 21 percent of survey respondents view him unfavorably, while 30 percent have no opinion about him. The same survey showed Paxton with a 62 percent favorability among Republicans, with 11 percent of respondents disapproving and 28 percent undecided.
Trump pollster Fabrizio, Lee & Associates reportedly found Paxton leading Cornyn by 25 points in a hypothetical head-to-head.
Still, Cornyn, who has held the seat since 2002, would be a tough candidate to beat. Cornyn has proven himself to be a strong fundraiser, trailing only former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the top Senate fundraiser in the past 15 years. Last year, he raised nearly $33 million to support Republican candidates in the 2024 cycle, bringing his career fundraising total to nearly $415 million.
Cornyn raised nearly $2.5 million in the first quarter of 2025, bringing his cash on hand total to $5.7 million, according to a source familiar with his political operation.
“It’s the money vs. where the base is at and I don’t know if Sen. Cornyn can buy his way out of that mess,” said one Republican strategist.
Paxton, a figure in the Texas GOP’s rising far-right faction, has long traded barbs with Cornyn, representative of the state party’s old guard. After months of speculation, Paxton launched his bid this week with a knock on Cornyn’s three decades in the upper chamber.
“It’s definitely time for a change in Texas,” Paxton said while announcing his campaign on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle,” adding that “it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas, and also support Trump.”
Cornyn came back swinging, hammering his primary rival over legal battles in the state.
“Obviously, Mr. Paxton has a checkered past,” Cornyn told reporters. “He is a con man and a fraud, and I think the people of Texas know that. This is what will be litigated over the course of this campaign.”
Paxton was indicted in 2015 on securities fraud charges, reaching a deal in 2024 to pay restitution and drop the charges. In 2023, he was impeached by the state House on more than a dozen counts after allegations that he misused his office to benefit a real estate developer before the state Senate acquitted him. And in January, the Texas Supreme Court tossed a lawsuit from the State Bar of Texas against Paxton related to efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.
Corruption allegations also spurred a federal investigation, but The Associated Press reported that the Justice Department decided to drop charges toward the end of the Biden administration. The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section took over the probe in 2023, which Paxton’s allies note was done under President Biden’s administration.
The attorney general’s supporters stress the charges have since been dropped and are in the past.
The drama surrounding Paxton came against the backdrop of simmering ideological tensions within the state’s Republican Party. Those tensions came to a boil last year amid a tense battle for the Texas House Speaker, which pitted a more establishment-aligned Republican, state Rep. Dustin Burrows, against a far-right candidate backed by Paxton. The attorney general went so far as to threaten to support primaries against any Republicans who backed Burrows, though in the end the far-right candidate lost.
Abbott, meanwhile, hinted at support for the candidate aligned with Paxton, further underscoring the divisions among top Texas Republicans.
Cornyn, for his part, has seen some warning signs among the state’s conservative grassroots. In 2022, he helped lead a bipartisan gun safety bill through Congress, following the Uvalde School shooting at Robb Elementary. Cornyn was later booed at the Texas GOP convention that year and the Collin County GOP voted to censure him.
“He really went deep and hard in a way that Second Amendment supporters really took great offense to,” the unnamed GOP strategist said. “And look, part of it is where the party base and electorate is.”
Cornyn and the Texas GOP appeared to have since moved on, with the state party’s chair Abraham George praising Cornyn this month as “an ally” to the party.
On the Democrats side, some appear optimistic that a bid from Paxton could help take out the longtime incumbent.
“RIP Cornyn,” Texas Democrats said in a post on X. “Ken Paxton is one of the least popular politicians in Texas. We are ready.”
There’s buzz that Collin Allred, who vied for Cruz’s seat last fall, “is going to be the guy” to try again this cycle, said Lana Hansen, executive director of Texas Blue Action.
The Dallas Morning News reported last month that he was “seriously considering” a 2026 bid.
But Cornyn and Cruz are “very different individuals,” Hansen said, adding that Cornyn is “a tough guy to beat.”
Both of Texas’s Senate seats have been red since the mid-90s, and Allred ultimately came in around 8 points behind Cruz as Democrats underperformed at the top of the ticket.
"A race against Cornyn is very different than a race against Ted Cruz in Texas. So it's just so hard to say what that looks like.”
“I think the elephant in the room is obviously Donald Trump and whether or not he decides to get involved one way or the other, that's the big question, and that changes the dynamics of the race, and he may decide to do it really late in the process,” Steinhauser said.
Thune told CNN that he has spoken to Trump about the possibility of endorsing Cornyn, but some Republicans are skeptical of the impact a Trump endorsement would have.
“If he endorsed Paxton it would be over,” the unnamed GOP strategist said. “If he endorsed Cornyn, I’m not sure it’s enough to get Cornyn over the finish line.”
Paxton’s entry makes for “a very hard fought, competitive race" that will have the rivals "sprinting for the next year, essentially,” Steinhauser said.
“The winner of that primary should have no problem in the general election, but it's going to be one of the biggest battles, I think, in Texas Republican Party politics in a while.”